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Through the quiet silence Gillian made her way up the short central aisle until she reached the chancel steps For a few ainst the flowers she held, in silent passionate prayer that knew neither form nor words--a soundless supplication that was an inchoate appeal to a God of infinite understanding Then rising slowly she pushed back the iron gate and went into the chancel Directly to the left the new ainst the old dark wall Sined it, the sculptor's enius of the day who had willingly come from France at Craven's invitation to perpetuate thefriend
A rugged pedestal of green bronze--with an inset panel representing the tragedy--rose upward in the shape of billowing curling waves supporting ahand, azed upith quivering lips at the Saviour's inclined tender face, and opening her arms let the scented mass of crimson blossom fall slowly to the slab at her feet that bore Miss Craven's name and Mary's cut side by side
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"
She read the words aloud, and with a stifled sob slipped down a the roses and carnations that Caro Craven had loved, and leaned her aching head against the cool hard bronze "Dearest," she whispered, in an agony of tears, "I wonder can you hear? I wonder are you allohere you are, to knohat happens here on earth? Oh, Aunt Caro, cherie, do you know that I have failed--failed to bring hih to give, I have tried so hard to understand, to helpI have prayed so earnestly that he ht be to him what you would have me bebut I have not been ableI have failed himfailed youthe roses, at the feet of the pitying Christ, she cried aloud in her desperate loneliness to the dead woiven her the tenderest love she had ever known The shadows lengthened widely before she rose and drew the scattered flowers into a fragrant heap She stood for a while studying intently the relief of the wreck; it suggested a train of thought, and with a sudden i thethose who had disappeared or died tragically By chance at first and later by design these had all been placed within the confines of the chancel that fore a part of the tiny church Before the florid Italian monument that recorded all that was known of the short life of the Elizabethan adventurer she paused long, looking with quickening heart-beat at the graceful kneeling figure whose face and form were those of the man she loved