stars. And wherefore? Because the mind you so haughtily vaunted has
refused its companion and teacher in Soul.

"And therefore, through you, I hope that she will be spared yet to live
on; she, in whom soul has been led dimly astray, by unheeding the checks
and the definite goals which the mind is ordained to prescribe to its
wanderings while here; the mind taking thoughts from the actual and
visible world, and the soul but vague glimpses and hints from the instinct
of its ultimate heritage. Each of you two seems to me as yet incomplete,
and your destinies yet uncompleted. Through the bonds of the heart,
through the trials of time, ye have both to consummate your marriage. I
do not--believe me--I do not say this in the fanciful wisdom of allegory
and type, save that, wherever deeply examined, allegory and type run
through all the most commonplace phases of outward and material life. I
hope, then, that she may yet be spared to you; hope it, not from my skill
as physician, but my inward belief as a Christian. To perfect your own
being and end, 'Ye will need one another!'"

I started--the very words that Lilian had heard in her vision!

"But," resumed Faber, "how can I presume to trace the numberless links of
effect up to the First Cause, far off--oh; far off--out of the scope of my
reason. I leave that to philosophers, who would laugh my meek hope to
scorn. Possibly, probably, where I, whose calling has been but to save
flesh from the worm, deem that the life of your Lilian is needed yet, to
develop and train your own convictions of soul, Heaven in its wisdom may
see that her death would instruct you far more than her life. I have
said, Be prepared for either,--wisdom through joy, or wisdom through
grief. Enough that, looking only through the mechanism by which this
moral world is impelled and improved, you know that cruelty is impossible