Love Eternal - H. Rider Haggard (ereader ebook .TXT) 📗

the shock of his supposed death had caused Isobel to miscarry and made her ill for some time, though underneath the entries about her illness and the false news of his death she had written:

"He is not dead. I /know/ that he is not dead."

Afterwards there were some curious sentences in which she spoke joyfully of having seen him in her sleep, ill, but living and going to recover, "at any rate for a while," she had added.

On the very day of her death she had made this curious note:

"I feel as though Godfrey and I were about to be separated for a while, and yet that this separation will really bring us closer together. I am strangely happy. Great vistas seem to open to my soul and down them I walk with Godfrey for ever and a day, and over them broods the Love of God in which are embodied and expressed all other loves. Oh! how wrong and foolish was I, who for so many years rejected that Love, which yet will not be turned away and in mercy gave me sight and wisdom and with these Godfrey, from whose soul my soul can never more be parted. For as I told you, my darling, ours is the Love Eternal. Remember it always, Godfrey, if ever your eyes should see these words upon the earth. Afterwards there will be no need for memory."

 

So the diary ended.

 

They invalided Godfrey out of the service and because of his lung trouble, he went to the house that Miss Ogilvy had left him in Lucerne, taking Mrs. Parsons with him. There too he found the Pasteur, grown an old man but otherwise much the same as ever, and him also he brought to live in the Villa Ogilvy.

The winter went on and Godfrey grew, not better, but worse, till at last he knew that he was dying, and rejoiced to die. One evening a letter was brought to him. It was from Madame Riennes, written in a shaky hand, and ran thus:

"I am going to pass to the World of Speerits, and so are you, my Godfrey, for I know all about you and everything that has happened. The plum is eaten, but the stone--ah! it is growing already, and soon you will be sitting with another under that beautiful Tree of Life of which I told you in the English church. And I, where shall I be sitting? Ah! I do not know, but there is this difference between us that whereas I am afraid, you have no cause for fear. You, you rejoice, yes, and shall rejoice--for though sometimes I hate you I must tell it. Yet I am sorry if I have harmed you, and should you be able, I pray you, say a good word in the World of Speerits for your sinful old godmamma Riennes. So fare you well, who thinking that you have lost, have gained all. It is I, I who have lost. Again farewell, and bid that old Pasteur to pray for me, which he, who is good, will do, although I was his enemy and cursed him."

"See that she lacks for nothing till the end, and comfort her if you can," said Godfrey to the Pasteur.

That night a shape of glory seemed to stand by Godfrey's bed and to whisper wonderful things into his ears. He saw it, ah, clearly, and knew that informing its changeful loveliness was all which had been Isobel upon the earth.

"Fear nothing," he thought it said, "for I am with you and others greater than I. Know, Godfrey, that everything has a meaning and that all joy must be won through pain. Our lives seem to have been short and sad, but these are not the real life, they are but its black and ugly door, whereof the threshold must be watered with our tears and the locks turned by the winds of Faith and Prayer. Do not be afraid then of the blackness of the passage, for beyond it shines the immortal light in that land where there is understanding and all forgiveness. Therefore be glad, Godfrey, for the night of sorrows is at an end and the dawn breaks of peace that passes understanding."

 

Godfrey woke and spoke to the old Pasteur who was watching by his bed while Mrs. Parsons wept at its foot.

"Did you see anything?" he asked.

"No, my son," he answered, "but I felt something. It was as though an angel stood at my side."

Then Godfrey told him all his vision, and much else besides, of which before he had never spoken to living man.

"It well may be, my son," answered the Pasteur, "since to those who have suffered greatly, the good God gives the great reward. He Who endured pain can understand our pains, and He Who redeemed sin can understand and be gentle to our sins, for His is the true Love Eternal. So go forward with faith and gladness, and in the joy of that new world and of the lost which is found again, think sometimes of the old Pasteur who hopes soon to join you there."

 

Then he shrove and blessed him.

 

After this Godfrey slept awhile to wake elsewhere in the Land of that Love Eternal which the soul of Isobel foreknew.

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Publication Date: 11-10-2014

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