"What would thy Christ have me to do?" she insisted. "This stranger,
here, is the joy of my heart; I am like to die if I can not give him
the love that I feel for him this hour!"
The startled Christian looked at her with suspicion growing in his
eyes.
"Art thou a wife? Wedded to another than this man?" he asked gravely.
"Wedded," she whispered, "to one who hath denied me, affronted me and
cast me out of his house! In this man I have found favor from the
beginning. He has been tender of me, he has sheltered me, and he has
strengthened me against himself to this hour. There has been nothing
sinful between us!"
The old Christian's face grew immeasurably sad.
"There is but one thing for you to do," he said.
She wrenched herself away from the Maccabee, who had been angrily
protesting against her carrying his case to another for decision, and
confronted Nathan.
"But he rejected me!" she cried with earnestness. "That alone is
enough among our people for divorcement!"
The Christian shook his head sadly. He was not happy to lay down this
prohibition before them who suffered.
"There is no help in thy faith for such as I am. In that thy religion
fails!" she cried.
"Love, now, is all in all to thee, daughter. It is but the speech of
thy young blood running through thy veins, the claim of thy youth to
thy use upon earth.
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