Page:The Great Secret.djvu/130

114 As she spoke her body rose gently from the midst of the wondering audience, and floated gracefully over their heads; then she came down again and stood with a gentle smile upon her refined features before them.

"My friends, I think we have passed through the Valley of Death, and that our troubles are over, although where we may have to go, or what we may have to do is not yet revealed to us, therefore we must wait."

"But when people die, they either go to heaven or to hell," said one of Adela's listeners.

"So we have been taught, but now we know differently. We shall learn our ultimate destination by and by, I doubt not, but at present we are still on the earth, and of the earth."

While Adela was still speaking, and the others listening, their attention was attracted by a strange procession which approached them from the interior of the cavern.

A double line of young men and women, all seemingly about the same age of nineteen, came along slowly, led by a child about six, who looked only at Adela, as she advanced smiling, yet with a steady gravity and sedateness older than her years.

"That is the child who came for me when I was bound to the submerged wreck," whispered Adela to Philip.

The girl child carried in her hand a bunch of white lilies. She was dazzlingly fair to look upon, with blue eyes and soft masses of wavy golden hair; so bright did the little maid look, with her white robe and fair skin, that she seemed to shine in that semi-dark cavern.