She went back to hi m a few steps.
"The others have gone from me without one kind word.

Can _you_ forgive me ?" He held out his hand to her without looking up.

Sorely as she had wounded him, his generous nature understood her.

True to her from the first, _he_ was true to her still.
"God bless and comfort you," he said, in broken tones.

"The earth holds no nobler woman than you." She knelt and kissed the kind hand that pressed hers for the last time.
"It doesn't end with this world," she whispered: "there is a better world to come!" Then she rose, and went back to the child.