Perhaps old Marcantonia had warned me of this appeal, and begged me to keep silence, which for my children’s sake I was bound to do. All I know is that one night towards the end of January, I lay awake as usual, thinking--if a mind distempered thus can think--of my own sweet Lily. All the evening I had sought her among the olive-trees, and at St. Katharine’s Church, and even on the sad sea-shore by the moaning of the waves. Now the winter moon was high, and through the embrasured window, the far churchyard that held my wife, and the silver sea beyond it, glimmered like the curtain of another world. Sitting up in the widowed bed, with one hand on my aching forehead--for now I breathed perpetual headache--I called in question that old church of one gay wedding and two dark funerals. Was there any such church at all; was it not a dream of moonlight and the phantom love? Even as I sat gazing now, so on many a moonlight night sat my Lily gazing with me, whispering of her father’s grave, and looking for it in the shrouded distance. Her little hand used to quiver in mine, as she declared she had found it; and her dark eyes had so wondrous a gift of sight, that I never would dare to deny, though I could not quite believe it. Had she not in the happy days, when we roamed on the beach together, waiting for the yacht and pretending to seek shells, had she not then told me the stripes and colours of the sailors’ caps, and even the names of the men on deck, when I could hardly see their figures? Ah, could she tell my own name now, could she descry me from that shore which mocks the range of telescope, and the highest lens of thought; was she permitted one glimpse of him from whom in life she could hardly bear to withdraw those gentle eyes? Answer me, my own, in life and death my own one; tell me that you watch and love me, though it be but now and then, and not enough to break the by-laws of the disembodied world. Calmly as I now repeat it, but in a low melodious tone, sweeter than any mortal’s voice, a tone that dwelt I knew not where, like the sighing of the night-wind, came this answer to me: "True love, for our children’s sake, and mine who watch and love you still, quit this grief, the spirit’s grave. All your sorrow still is mine, and would you vex your darling, when you cannot comfort her? Though you see me now no more, I am with you more than ever; I am your image and your shadow. At every sigh of yours, I shiver; your smiles are all my sunshine. Let me feel some sunshine, sweetest; you know how I used to love it, and as yet you have sent me none. I shall look for some to-morrow. Lo I, for ever yours, am smiling on you now."