--You went forth in ignorance and need--you
shall return in science and wealth, philosophy and art. You went forth with
the world a wilderness before you--you shall return when it is a garden
behind you. You went forth selfish-savages--you shall return as the
brothers of the Son of God.
"And for you," she said, looking on me, "your penance is accomplished. You
have learned what it is to be a man. You have lost your life and saved it.
He that gives up house, or land, or wife, or child, for God's sake, it
shall be repaid him an hundred-fold. Awake!"
Surely I knew that voice. She lifted her veil. The face was Lillian's?
No!--Eleanor's!
Gently she touched my hand--I sank down into soft, weary happy sleep.
The spell was snapped. My fever and my dreams faded away together, and I
woke to the twittering of the sparrows, and the scent of the poplar leaves,
and the sights and sounds of childhood, and found Eleanor and her uncle
sitting by my bed, and with them Crossthwaite's little wife.
I would have spoken, but Eleanor laid her finger on her lips, and taking
her uncle's arm, glided from the room.
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