Then would sweep across his soul a pitiless vista of the long cold years that lay between him and Jenny.  He was not twenty-five; through what a weary pilgrimage of useless years must he journey on, before there was Jenny’s face shining at the end.  How he envied the old woman whose sorrow was in this alone less cruel than his, that she was already fifty years farther on the road to Jenny.  Perhaps another year or two and she would meet her.  To meet so soon—­was hardly to have parted at all.

But, why live those years?  Have you forgotten that old promise?  Is it too late to follow?  Surely little Jenny will not speed so swiftly from the earth she loved but that you shall overtake her.  Who knows but she is fluttering still at the gate of death, putting off the heavenward journey hour after hour, in hope that the face she waits for will at last light up the dark portal—­

     “I’ll take his hand and go with him
       To the deep wells of light;
     As unto a stream we will step down,
       And bathe there in God’s sight.”

But was this the way to find Jenny?  The universe was so full of dark traps for lovers’ feet.  To lie down cold as Jenny by Jenny’s side, was that the way to find her?  When death’s gate opened for Jenny, had Theophil at that very instant, hand in her hand, eyes fixed upon her eyes, slipped through too, then surely they had been together.  But the door had closed, and whither on the other side Jenny had already wandered, who could tell?  Perhaps that was the very way to miss her.

When two have lost each other in a crowd, it is best that one should stand still and await the other.  Perhaps it were best for him to stand still here in life.  Jenny would know where to seek him then—­and maybe the dead had mysterious ways of bringing news to the living.  He could wait a little while and see.  For a little he could live—­and listen.

CHAPTER XXIII

JENNY’S LYING IN STATE

But there were others besides those who stood so near who mourned Jenny, passers-by on the road of friendship, who would miss her sunshine in the streets, and carry with them one bright thought the less for that bright face that death had thus blown out.  There were especially some little people to whom death was as yet hardly even mysterious, but was merely perplexing, like many other grown-up things in which their parents were interested.  These were the little scholars of Jenny’s Sunday-school class, to whom simple Jenny had been a personage, quite a great lady, full of gentleness.  To these Jenny was “Teacher,” a name of gentle awe; and to these Teacher was as deeply dear as anyone can be to very young hearts.

Jenny had felt like a little mother to these little ones, and when she lay ill her thoughts would often go to them, while from them would come tiny presents to show how sorry they were that Teacher was ill.