She spoke as though he had intruded upon her most sacred privacy, and he answered, apologetically, "Yes, I have visited the little grave in the garden. I hope I have not intruded. I have a little grave in the churchyard at home, and such spots are very sacred to me."
Agnes Wayland was a lady, and she would not have been guilty of a rudeness for the world, so she hastened to reply,--
"Oh, no, sir, you have not been guilty of intrusion, but you are the first one who has ever visited my grave, and I have watched it so fondly for so many years that I almost felt jealous that any other eyes should ever look upon it."
"And I have not only looked upon it," said the minister, very softly and benignantly, "but I have dropped a tear upon it."
"That is something that I have never done."
"Then I pity you with all my heart, my friend. If I had not been able to weep over my child's grave, I think my heart would have broken."
"Mine, sir, was broken before the child died," and, as she said this, she arose hastily and left the room.
The minister was much interested and full of sympathy for this lonely woman, whose lot was so isolated, and as he lay that night and listened to the deep, hollow roar of the sea, he thought of the great deeps of the human heart, and the fierce passions which were ever tossing it, and of the great calm of death.
A few days after he ventured as delicately as he could to return to the subject, by referring to the little girl he had lost, and of how her mother had followed her, but a short time before, to the better land.
"You seem very cheerful, sir," said Agnes Wayland, in a quick, impetuous way, "and yet you have had trouble, it seems."
"Yes, madam, I have had some very severe and dreadful trials; but I am very happy and hopeful in spite of them all, for I know that now they will soon be ended, and that I shall recover all that I have lost when I reach the heavenly land."
"How do you know that? I don't know it. When I buried my only child down in the garden there, I thought I had lost him forever. That was why, in my stony grief, no tear ever fell upon his grave. I have been trying these fifteen years to believe what you say you believe; but it has no consolation for me. God took my child away from me in my bitterest need, and he took him forever. Was it a good God who did that?"