"Marcus," she answered steadily, "I do not think I should be asked to listen to such words."
"Why not? They have always been thought honest between man and woman."
"Perhaps, when they are meant honestly, which in this case can scarcely be."
He grew hot and red. "What do you mean? Do you suppose----"
"I suppose nothing, Captain Marcus."
"Do you suppose," he repeated, "that I would offer you less than the place of wife?"
"a.s.suredly not," she replied, "since to do so would be to insult you.
But neither do I suppose that you really meant to offer me that place."
"Yet that was in my mind, Miriam."
Her eyes grew soft, but she answered:
"Then, Marcus, I pray you, put it out of your mind, since between us rolls a great sea."
"Is it named Caleb?" he asked bitterly.
She smiled and shook her head. "You know well that it has no such name."
"Tell me of this sea."
"It is easy. You are a Roman worshipping the Roman G.o.ds; I am a Christian worshipping the G.o.d of the Christians. Therefore we are forever separate."
"Why? I do not understand. If we were married you might come to think like me, or I might come to think like you. It is a matter of the spirit and the future, not of the body and the present. Every day Christians wed those who are not Christians; sometimes, even, they convert them."
"Yes, I know; but in my case this may not be--even if I wished that it should be."
"Why not?"
"Because both by the command of my murdered father and of her own desire my mother laid it on me with her dying breath that I should take to husband no man who was not of our faith."
"And do you hold yourself to be bound by this command?"
"I do, without doubt and to the end."
"However much you might chance to love a man who is not a Christian?"
"However much I might chance to love such a man."
Marcus let fall her hand. "I think I had best go," he said.
"Yes."
Then came a pause while he seemed to be struggling with himself.
"Miriam, I cannot go."
"Marcus, you must go."
"Miriam, do you love me?"
"Marcus, may Christ forgive me, I do."
"Miriam, how much?"
"Marcus, as much as a woman may love a man."
"And yet," he broke out bitterly, "you bid me begone because I am not a Christian."
"Because my faith is more than my love. I must offer my love upon the altar of my faith--or, at the least," she added hurriedly, "I am bound by a rope that cannot be cut or broken. To break it would bring down upon your head and mine the curse of Heaven and of my parents, who are its inhabitants."
"And if I became of your faith?"
Her whole face lit up, then suddenly its light died.
"It is too much to hope. This is not a question of casting incense on an altar; it is a matter of a changed spirit and a new life. Oh! have done.
Why do you play with me?"
"A changed spirit and a new life. At the best that would take time."
"Yes, time and thought."
"And would you wait that time? Such beauty and such sweetness as are yours will not lack for suitors."
"I shall wait. I have told you that I love you; no other man will be anything to me. I shall wed no other man."
"You give all and take nothing; it is not just."
"It is as G.o.d has willed. If it pleases G.o.d to touch your heart and to preserve us both alive, then in days to come our lives may be one life.
Otherwise they must run apart till perchance we meet--in the eternal morning."
"Oh, Miriam, I cannot leave you thus! Teach me as you will."
"Nay, go, Marcus, and teach yourself. Am I a bait to win your soul? The path is not so easy, it is very difficult. Fare you well!"
"May I write to you from Rome?" he asked.
"Yes, why not, if by that time you should care to write, who then will have recovered from this folly of the desert and an idle moon?"
"I shall write and I shall return, and we will talk of these matters; so, most sweet, farewell."
"Farewell, Marcus, and the love of G.o.d go with you."