David's illness had deepened beyond any other experience her faith in an overruling Providence. His return to health was to her a return from death: it was an answer to her prayers: it was a resurrection. Henceforth his life was a gift for the second time to himself, to her, to the world for which he must work with all his powers and work aright. And her pledge, her compact with the Divine, was to help him, to guide him back into the faith from which he had wandered. Outside of prayer, days and nights at his bedside had made him hers: vigils, nursing, suffering, helplessness, dependence--all these had been as purest oil to that alabaster lamp of love which burned within her chaste soul. The sun had gone down. The hush of twilight was descending from the clear sky, in the depths of which the brightest stars began to appear as points of silvery flame. The air had the balm of early summer, the ground was dry and warm. Gabriella began to watch. The last time she had gone to see him, as he walked part of the way back with her, he had said:-- "I am well now; the next time _I_ am coming to see YOU." Soon, along the edge of the orchard from the direction of the house, she saw him walking slowly toward her, thin, gaunt; he was leaning on a rough, stout hickory, as long as himself, in the manner of an old man. She rose quickly and hastened to him. "Did you walk?" "I rode. But I am walking now--barely. This young tree is escorting me." They went back to her shawl, which she opened and spread, making a place for him. She moved it back a little, for safety, so that it was under the boughs of one of the trees. How quiet the land was, how beautiful the evening light, how sweet the air! Now and then a petal from some finished blossom sifted down on Gabriella. They were at such peace: their talk was interrupted by the long silences which are peace. "Gabriella, you saved my life." "It is not I who have power over life and death." "It was your nursing." "It was my prayers," murmured Gabriella. "And you gave me the will to get well: that also was a great help: without you I should not have had that same will to live." "It was a higher Will than yours or mine." "And the doctor from town who stayed with me." "And a Greater Physician who stayed also." He made no reply for a while, but then asked, turning his face toward her uneasily:-- "Our different ways of looking at things--will they never make any difference with you?" "Some day there will be no difference." "You will agree with me?" he exclaimed joyfully. "You will agree with me." "Do not expect that! Do not expect that I shall ever again believe in the old things." "I expect you to believe in God, in the New Testament, in the Resurrection, in the answer to prayer." "If I do not?" "Then you will in the Life to come." "But will this separate us?" "You will need me all the more."