“Will a murderer’s prayer add one ray of joy to the angel who has come out on the sea to save me,—­me, twice saved, oh! why?”—­and Mr. Axtell laid his hand upon my head in blessing.

“Twice saved,” I said, “that the third salvation may be Christ’s.”

Solemnly came the “Amen” from his lips, tremulous as the bridge of light he had once passed over.

“Good-bye, Mr. Axtell; I shall fulfil Mary’s wish for you, if you will let me;” and I offered him my hand for this second parting:  the first had been when he went out alone to his mother’s burial.

He looked at it, as he then had done, uncomprehending, and said only,—­

“Will I let you?”

He gathered up the cushion, and carried it to the church.  I closed the gate that shut in this silent city, and went to the parsonage.

* * * * *

The sun had gone down,—­the night was coming on.  I found Aaron pacing the verandah with impatient steps.  He asked where I had been.  I told him.

“It is very well that you are going so soon,” he said,—­“you are getting decidedly ghostly.  Will you take a walk with me?”

I was thankful for the occasion.  As might have been expected, Aaron chose the way that led to the solemn old house.  I was amused.

“Where are you going?” I questioned.

“To inquire after our early-morning patient,” he said.

“And not to see Mrs. Aaron Wilton?”

Aaron looked the least mite retributive, as he said,—­

“Anna, there are mysteries in life.”

“As, why Aaron was chosen before Moses,” I could not help suggesting. 
Sophie had had an opportunity of being Mrs. Moses, instead of Mrs.
Aaron.

“Sophie’s wise; you are not, Anna, I fear.”

“Your fear may be the beginning of my wisdom, Aaron:  I hope so.”

With the exception of a return to the subject on which Aaron had questioned me at breakfast, and on which he elicited no further information from me, nothing of interest occurred until we were within the place that held Sophie’s pearly self.

She had been a shower of sunshine, letting fall gold and silver drops through all the house.  I saw them, heard their sweet glade-like music rippling everywhere, the moment that I went in.

Mr. Axtell was pacing the hall in the evening twilight, and the little of lamp-lustre that was shed into it.

He looked passively calm, heroically enduring, as we went past him.  From his eyes came scintillations of a joy whose root is not in our planet.

He simply said,—­

“Mrs. Wilton is with my sister; she will be glad to see you.”

We went on.  Sophie had made a very nest of repose in the sick-room.  Miss Axtell looked so comfortable, so untired of life, so changed from the first glimpse I had had of her, when I thought her face might be such as would be found under Dead-Sea waves.  There was no more of the anxious unrest.  She spoke to Mr. Wilton, thanking him for the “good gift,” she named Sophie, that he had lent to her.