That was in Christ--the divine passion to save! Now she began to ponder
on those last words the maid had spoken, and the more she thought of
them the greater became her sadness until it was like the approach of
death. O terrible words! Yet it was what she had feared, even when she
had dared to hope for forgiveness. Now she knew what her life after
death was to be since the word had been spoken by those inspired lips. O
dreadful destiny! To dwell alone, to tread alone that desert desolate,
that illimitable waste of burning sand stretching from star to star
through infinite space, where was no rock nor tree to give her shade, no
fountain to quench her fiery thirst! For that was how she imaged the
future life, as a desert to be dwelt in until in the end, when in God's
good time--the time of One to whom a thousand years are as one day--she
would receive the final pardon and be admitted to rest in a green and
shaded place. Overcome with the agonising thought she sank down on her
couch and fell into a faint. In that state she was found by her women,
reclining, still as death, with eyes closed, the whiteness of
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