After Mrs Connor had gone, Joy was for a long time in meditation, and
then turned in a mechanical manner to her delayed task. Her book of
"Impressions" lay on a table close at hand.
And as she took it up the leaves opened to the sentence she had
written three years before, after her talk with the rector about
Marah Adams.
"It seems to me I could not love a man who did not seek to lead me
higher; the moment he stood below me and asked me to descend, I
should realise he was to be pitied, not adored!"
She shut the book and fell on her knees in prayer; and as she prayed
a strange thing happened. The room filled with a peculiar mist, like
the smoke which is illuminated by the brilliant rays of the morning
sun; and in the midst of it a small square of intense rose-coloured
light was visible. This square grew larger and larger, until it
assumed the size and form of a man, whose face shone with immortal
glory. He smiled and laid his hand on Joy's head. "Child, awake,"
he said, and with these words vast worlds dawned upon the girl's
sight. She stood above and apart from her grosser body, untrammelled
and free; she saw long vistas of lives in the past through which she
had come to the present; she saw long vistas of lives in the future
through which she must pass to gain the experience which would lead
her back to God. An ineffable peace and serenity enveloped her. The
divine Presence seemed to irradiate the place in which she stood--she
felt herself illuminated, transfigured, sanctified by the holy flame
within her.
When she came back to the kneeling form by the couch, and rose to her
feet, all the aspect of life had changed for her.