He is all that your dreams and all that your longings desire."
She smiled very faintly.
"Why did He come into the world?" was her next question.
"Don"t you know that old story? Has no one told you?"
"Won"t you tell me now, father?"
"The old story was that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
"Sinners," repeated Sibyl, ""cos He loved "em?"
"Would He have done that for anything else, do you think?"
"I "spect not," she replied, and again the faint smile filled her eyes.
"Then He loves _you_," she said, after a moment. "He came from heaven "cos of you."
"It seems like it, my little girl, and yet I cannot bring myself to believe that He can love me."
"Don"t speak to me, father, for a minute; go away, and look out of the window, and come back when I call you."
He rose at once, crossed the room, and stood looking out. In a short time the feeble voice called him back.
"Father!" There was a change in the face, the look of pain had vanished, the sweet eyes were as peaceful as ever, and more clearly than ever did that amazing knowledge and comprehension fill them, which never belonged to this earth.
"Kneel down, father," said Sibyl.
He knelt.
Now she laid her little hand in his, and now she smiled at him, and now, as if she were strong and well again, she stroked his hand with her other hand, and at last she feebly raised the hand and pressed it to her lips.
"I am loving you so much," she said, "same as Jesus loves you, I think."
Then Ogilvie did give a sob. He checked it as it rose to his throat.
"It is all right," she continued, "I love you. Jesus is perfect ...
and He loves you."
"But do you, Sibyl, really love me the same as ever?" he asked, and there was a note of incredulity in his voice.
"Seems to me I love you more"n ever" was her answer, and the next instant her soft arms encircled his neck, and he felt her kisses on his cheek.
But suddenly, without warning, there came a change. There was a catch in the eager, quick breath, the arms relaxed their hold, the little head fell back on the pillow, the face almost rosy a moment back was now white, but the eyes were radiant and full of a wonderful, astonished light.
"Why," cried Sibyl, "it"s Lord Jesus! He has come. He is here, looking at me." She gazed toward the foot of the bed, her eyes were raised slightly upward each moment the ecstatic expression grew and grew in their depths.
"Oh, my beautiful Lord Jesus," she whispered. "Oh, take me." She tried to raise her arms and her eyes were fixed on a vision which Ogilvie could not see. There was just an instant of absolute stillness, then the clear voice spoke again.
"Take me, Lord Jesus Christ, but first, afore we go, kiss father, and tell him you love him."
The eager lips were still, but the light, too wonderful for this mortal life, continued to fill the eyes.
It seemed to Ogilvie that great wings encircled him, that he was wrapped in an infinite peace. Then it seemed also as if a kiss sweet beyond all sweetness brushed his lips.
The next instant all was cold and lonely.
CHAPTER XXIII.
There is such a thing in life as turning straight round and going the other way. This was what happened to Philip Ogilvie after the death of Sibyl. All his life hitherto he had been on the downward plane. He was now decidedly on the upward. The upward path was difficult, and his feet were tired and his spirits sore, and often he faltered and flagged and almost stopped, but he never once went back. He turned no look toward the easy way which leads to destruction, for at the top of the path which he was now climbing, he ever and always saw his child waiting for him, nor did he feel even here on earth that his spirit was really far from hers. Her influence still surrounded him--her voice spoke to him in the summer breeze--her face looked at him out of the flowers, and her smile met him in the sunshine.
He had a rough time to go through, but he endured everything for her sake. By degrees his worldly affairs were put into some sort of order, and so far as his friends and society went he vanished from view. But none of these things mattered to him now. He was living on earth, it is true; but all the ordinary earth desires had died within him. The spiritual life, however, did not die. Day by day it grew stronger and braver; so it came to pa.s.s that his sympathies, instead of dwindling and becoming small and narrow, widened, until once more he loved and once more he hoped.
He became very tolerant for others now, and especially was he tolerant to his wife.
He bore with her small ways, pitied her grief, admitted to himself that there were limits in her nature which no power could alter, and did his best to make her happy.
She mourned and grieved and grieved and mourned for that which meant nothing at all to him, but he was patient with her, and she owned to herself that she loved him more in his adversity than she had done in his prosperity.
For Sibyl"s sake, too, Ogilvie roused himself to do what he could for her special friends. There was a tiny fund which he had once put aside for his child"s education, and this he now spent in starting a shop for the Holmans in Buckingham Palace Road. He made them a present of the shop, and helped them to stock it with fresh toys. The old pair did well there, they prospered and their trade was good, but they never forgot Sibyl, and their favorite talk in the evenings as they sat side by side together was to revive memories of the little, old shop and the child who used to buy the dusty toys.
As to Lord Grayleigh, Philip Ogilvie and he never met after that day outside the Cannon Street Hotel. The fact is, a gulf divided them; for although both men to a great extent repented of what they had done, yet there was a wide difference in their repentance--one had acted with the full courage of his convictions, the other still led a life of honor before his fellow-men, but his heart was not straight with G.o.d.
Grayleigh and Ogilvie, therefore, with the knowledge that each knew the innermost motives of the other, could not meet nor be friends.
Nevertheless Sibyl had influenced Grayleigh. For her sake he ceased to be chairman of several somewhat shady companies, and lived more than he had done before in his own place, Grayleigh Manor, and surrounded by his children. He was scarcely heard to mention Sibyl"s name after her death.
But amongst his treasures he still keeps that little old note-book in which she begged of him to enter her special wishes, and so much affected was he in his heart of hearts, by her childish words, that he used his utmost influence and got a good diplomatic appointment for Rochester, thus enabling him and Lady Helen to marry, although not by the means which Sibyl had suggested.
These things happened a few years ago, and Ogilvie is still alive, but, although he lives still on earth, he also waits on the verge of life, knowing that at any hour, any moment, day or night, the message may come for him to go, and in his dreams he believes that the first to meet him at the Gates will be the child he loves.
[THE END.]