ght a dead body from falling.

'God knows what she was.'

The speaker fell to prayer. Presently Rhoda said: 'How did you name her?'

'I named her Margaret.'

Rhoda whispered: 'She was Diadyomene.'

Then she covered her face with her hands, lest the grave eyes should read
over deep.

'What else?' she said, 'tell all.'

'When the grace of God had prevailed over our doubt and dismay, we did
not dread to consider the dead countenance. It was fairer even than in
life; serene as any sleeping child; death looked then like a singular
favour.

'We closed her eyes and folded her hands, and laid her out before the
altar, and resumed prayer for the one nameless and another Margaret.

'And no more we knew of whence she came than this: that by daybreak a
powder of drying brine frosted her dark hair, and the hollows of her ears
were white with salt.'

'So,' said Rhoda, 'might come one cast ashore from a wreck.'

'We took measures, indeed, to know if that could be; but out of all the
search we sent about not a sign nor a clue came. If she were indeed that
one Diadyomene, we may only look to know more when the young man
Christian shall come again.'

Rhoda turned her face to the wall when she answered very low: 'He will
not come again. Well I know he will never come again.'

Then her breathing shortened convulsively, and past restraint her grief
broke out into terrible weeping.

The dark-robed monitress knelt in prayer beside her. That pious heart was
wise and loving, and saw that no human aid could comfort this lorn girl
fallen upon her care. When Rhoda was spent and still, she spoke:

'My child, if, indeed, we can no more pray God to keep that brave young
life from sin and death, yet may we pray that his soul may win to peace
and rest under the mercy of heaven. Nay, there is no need that you too
should rise for kneeling. Lie down, lie down, for your body is over
spent. Kneel before God in spirit.'

There was long silence, and both prayed, till Rhoda faltered to the
betrayal of her unregenerate heart: 'Was she so very fair indeed? Where
is she laid? Take me--oh, let me once look upon her face.'

'It may not be. She lies a day buried, there without among our own
dead--although--God only knows what she was.'

Rhoda again would rise.

'Yet take me there. Night-time? Ah yes, night, night that will never
pass.'

At daybreak she stood, alone at her desire, beside a new-made grave, and
knew that the body of Diadyomene