But down to the earth it seemed that much of it was whirled again, to ascend once more in an age to come, since though the stream of life pulses continually forward, it has its backwash and its eddies.
Barbara learned that though it is blessed to die young and sinless, like to that glorious child of hers with whom she walked in this heavenly creation, and whose task it was to instruct her in its simpler mysteries, to live and to repent is yet more blessed.

In this life or in that all have sinned, but not all have repented, and therefore, it appeared to Barbara, again and again such must know the burden of the flesh.
Also she saw many wonders and learned many secrets of that vast, spiritual universe into which this world of ours pours itself day by day.

But if she remembers anything of these she cannot tell them.
Oh! happy was her life with Anthony, for there, though now sex as we know it had ceased to be, spirit grew ever closer to spirit, and as below they dreamed and hoped, their union had indeed become an altar on which Love's perfect fire flamed an offering to Heaven.

Happy, too, was her communion with those other souls that had been mingled in her lot, and with many more whom she had known aforetime and elsewhere and long forgotten.

For Barbara learned that life is an ancient story of which we spell out the chapters one by one.
Yet amidst all this joy and all the blessed labours of a hallowed world in which idleness was not known, nor any weariness in well-doing, a certain shadow met Barbara whichever way she turned.
"What is it ?" asked Anthony, who felt her trouble.
"Our son," she answered, and showed him all the tale, or so much of it as he did not know, ending, "And I chose to leave him that I might take my chance of finding you.