The gates ajar. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

The Gates Ajar. 87
forgetting, he becomes another than himself.
That is a far more unnatural way of creeping
out of the difficulty than to assume that he loves
and remembers. Why not assume that? In
fact, why assume anything else? Neither reason, nor the Bible, nor common sense, forbids
it. Instead of starting with it as an hypothesis
to be proved if we can, I lay it down as one of
those probabilities for which Butler would say,'the presumption amounts nearly to certainty';
and if any one can disprove it, I will hear what
he has to say. There!" she broke off, laughing softly, "that is a sufficient dose of metaphysics for such a simple thing. It seems
to me to lie just here: Roy loved you. Our
Father, for some tender, hidden reason, took
him out of your sight for a while. Though
changed much, he can have forgotten nothing.
Being only out of sigaht, you remember, not
lost, nor asleep, nor annihilated, he goes on
loving. To love must mean to think of, to
care for, to hope for, to pray for, not less out
of a body than in it."
"But that must mean -why, that must
mean --
"That he is near you. I do not doubt it."
The sunshine quivered in among the ivyleaves, and I turned to watch it, thinking.