The Christian started from his
place and hurried toward the tense figure in the torch-light. Laodice,
unconscious of what she did, approached him with an agony of distress
for him written in her face. The white-haired apparition crept out a
little way on his knees and putting aside his tangled locks gazed with
burning eyes at the defeated man.
Laodice, in her anxiety, moved into the range of the Maccabee's
vision. The next instant he had thrown away his sword and had caught
her in a crushing embrace to him. His voice, blunted and repressed as
if something had him by the throat, was stunning her ear.
"And thou!" he was saying. "What from thee, now? Hate! Curses!
Ingratitude! Hast thou poison for me, or a knife? Or worse, yet,
scorn? Speak! It is a day of enlightenment! I'll brook anything but
deceit!"
She stopped him in the midst of his vehement despair, by laying her
hands on his hair. There surged to her lips all the eloquence of her
love and sympathy, but beside her old Nathan stood--an embodiment of
her conscience, watching.
Twice she essayed to put into words the comfort of her submission to
his love. Twice her lips failed her; but the third time she turned to
the Christian.
"Rabbi, what shall I do?" she implored. "Tell me out of thy wisdom!"
"What is it?" he asked, feeling that there was more than sympathy for
the defeated man in her heart.
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