“Dear father,” she said finally, “I have been thinking of the past years, in which you have taught me so much.”

“It is better to look forward, Annie,” he answered.  “The traveller to Eternity must not continually turn back to count his steps; for if God be leading him, no matter how dangerous or lonely the road, ’He will pluck thy feet out of the net.’”

“Even in the valley of death?”

“‘Be not afraid!  Nothing of thee will die!"’ Take these sweet compassionate words of Jesus, as He wept by the dying bed of Joseph, His father, into thy heart.  Blessed are the homesick, Annie! for they shall get home.”

“All my life I have loved God, and His love has been over me.”

“Date not God’s love from thy nativity; look far, far back of it—­to the everlasting love.”

“After death, I shall know.”

“Death!” he repeated, “Death that deceitful word.  What is it?  A dream, that wakes us at the end of the night.  This is the great saying that men forget—­Death is Life!”

“Yet life ceases.”

“It does not, Annie.  Death, is like the setting of the sun.  The sun never sets; life never ceases.  Certain phenomena occur which deceive us, because human vision is so feeble—­we think the sun sets, and it never ceases shining; we think our friends die, and they never cease living.”

As he spoke these words Mary Damer entered, and she laid her hand on his shoulder and said, “My dear Doctor Roslyn, after death what then? we are not all good—­what then?”

He looked at her wistfully and answered, “I will give you one thought, Mary, to ponder—­the blessedness of heaven, is it not an eternity older than the misery of hell?  Let your soul fearlessly follow where this fact leads it; for there is no limit to God’s mercy.  Do you think it is His way to worry a wandering sheep eternally?  Jesus Christ thought better of His father.  He told us that the Great Shepherd of souls followed such sheep into the wilderness, and brought them home in His arms, or on His shoulder, and then called on the angels of heaven to rejoice because they were found.  Find out what that parable means, Mary.  He whose name is ‘Love’ can teach you.”

Then he rose and went away, and Mary sat down in his place, and Annie gradually came back to the material plane of everyday life and duty.  Indeed Mary brought this element in a very decided form with her; for she had a letter in her hand from an old lover, and she was much excited by its advent, and eager to discuss the particulars with Annie.

“It is from Captain Seabright, who is now in Pondicherry,” she explained.  “He loves me, Annie.  He loved me long ago, and went to India to make money; now he says he has enough and to spare; and he asks me if I have forgotten.”

“There is Mr. Van Ariens to consider.  You have promised to marry him, Mary.  It is not hard to find the right way on this road, I think.”