Her agitation was uncontrolled for a minute, and then she said, with feeling seemingly too strong to be kept in,
"If I were only sure of meeting her in heaven, I could be content to be without her till then!--"
"What is in the way, my dear madam?" said Mr. Carleton, with a gentle sympathy that touched the very spring he meant it should. Mrs. Rossitur waited a minute, but it was only till tears would let her speak, and then said like a child,--
"Oh, it is all darkness!--"
"Except this," said he, gently and clearly, "that Jesus Christ is a sun and a shield; and those that put themselves at his feet are safe from all fear, and they who go to him for light shall complain of darkness no more."
"But I do not know how--"
"Ask him and he will tell you."
"But I am unworthy even to look up towards him," said Mrs. Rossitur, struggling, it seemed, between doubts and wishes.
"He knows that, and yet he has bid you come to him. He knows that,--and knowing it, he has taken your responsibility and paid your debt, and offers you now a clean discharge, if you will take it at his hand;--and for the other part of this unworthiness, that blood cannot do away, blood has brought the remedy--'Shall we who are evil give good things to our children, and shall not our Father which is in heaven give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?'"
"But must I do nothing?" said Mrs. Rossitur, when she had remained quiet with her face in her hands for a minute or two after he had done speaking.