He gazed at her, apparently unconscious of the desperation in the face
lifted to him. The slow smile that presently grew again in his eyes
was none the less unthoughted. He slipped his hand under a strand of
her rich hair that had fallen and drew it out, slowly, at full length.
Slowly his eyes followed it as inch by inch it slipped through his
fingers. Old memories seemed to struggle to the surface; old
tendernesses; recollection of pure hours and holy things; paganism
dropped from him like a husk and the spiritual hauteur of a Jew
brought the expression of the unhumbled house of Judah into his face.
Through a notch in the hills a golden beam shot from the sun and
penetrating this inwalled valley lay like an illuminating fire on the
man's face and glorified it. Laodice's breath stopped.
Slowly his fingers slipped along the fine silken length of that
shining strand until his arm extended to the full; and the end of the
lock yet rested on her breast. Thus might have been the hair of that
Rahab, who was no less a patriot because she was frail; thus, the hair
of Bathsheba, who was the mother of the wisest Israelite though she
sinned; thus the hair of that mother of Samson, who slew armies
single-handed! Badge of Judah, mark of the haughty strength of the
oldest enlightenment in the world! He would not initiate his succor of
Israel with violence against its purest type.
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