Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 098.djvu/350

 338 approaching, he stepped aside, not to disturb her in her pious duty; but he felt that this was the sad and solemn place where he was to take leave of her for life. He remained at a little distance, gazing at how, as she knelt in prayer by the grave, and it was not until she rose to depart that he approached her slowly and silently. He held in his hand a cross of shining mother-of-pearl, which his mother had given him when a child, bidding him present it to her to whom in future he should give his heart. When packing his portmanteaus and desk, he had stumbled on this maternal gift, so long laid by, and he had now brought it to offer it as a parting souvenir to her he loved so hopelessly. It seemed to shine with peculiar brightness in the dear moonlight.

"Benjamina!" he exclaimed; and she raised her beautiful dark eyes from the grave, and recognised him. But when she saw the shining cross in his hand, she sank on her knees, and folded her hands across her breast.

"Heavens! it is fulfilled!" she exclaimed. "His spirit shows me the symbol of peace and redemption at this grave."

"What!" cried Veit, in deep anxiety, "at this grave?"

"At this grave I was to be released, were his last words to me, as an angel enlightened his mind at the moment of death. And see, his spirit has led you here with that holy symbol in your hand, the sign of that daith, believing in which, I shall be united to your crucified Redeemer for ever."

"Praised be the name of that Redeemer!" cried the happy Veit, "and blessed be that spirit, which in death permitted you to seek redemption! Now, there is nothing to prevent our union, and I claim you as my bride in the face of the Almighty, and by this grave, where I had feared our final parting was to have taken place."

They joined their hands over the old man's grave, and Benjamina then told how her departed grandfather, in his last moments, seemed to have understood that the noble predictions of David and the prophets respecting the Messiah had been fulfilled, that he had made the sign of a cross on his death-bed with his cold stiffening hand, and with a smile of ineffable happiness bad yielded up his spirit in her arms.

"It was ordained, and it has been wonderfully fulfilled!"' exclaimed Veit, as he and Benjamina knelt together by the new-made grave.

The following year, on the anniversary of that day, a happy Christian couple stood by a tomb, which was thickly strewed with fresh flowers; within that tomb reposed the aged Philip Moses, with his face turned towards the east. Benjamina clasped her beloved husband's hand in one of hers, while with the other she pressed the mother-of-pearl cross to her heart.

"Now he knows the truth," said she, "and has seen the promised land, and the holy city which is lightened by the glory of God, and where the redeemed out of every kindred, and people, and nation of the earth shall be blessed for evermore!"