“I shall be sorry, too, at our parting!”
“‘Sorry!’ Ah! that’s no word for me, this time; agonized is better!” was the young missioner’s quick rejoinder.
The maiden was pained, but she mastered her feelings and pleaded:
“The parting must come some time; do not let such repinings make it harder for both. It is wiser, when confronting what one does not desire, but can not help, to court the balm of forgetfulness. So do I ever, especially now.”
“And like all attempted silencings of the heart, by cold philosophy, mocked at last by failure!”
“My philosophy can not mock me, since it accords with the stern facts which confront us. I’ll be as frank now as a sister, Cornelius. Our diverging missions part us. You go to Jerusalem to preach the cross; I, to a narrower field, at Bozrah, to attempt the rekindling of love on one lone altar of wedlock. God orders it thus, and I submit unquestioningly; for it is not for one who can scarcely touch the hem of His garment to challenge His wisdom by a murmur.”
“But time, Miriamne, may leave you free, your work being completed in the Giant City?”
“Even so. There is a gulf between us; we may love across it but not pass it, in body, in this life.”
“And I can not see the gulf?”
“I am in faith, after all, an Israelite; enlightened to be sure, but not likely to renounce the ancient beliefs. You are a Christian; nor would I wish you otherwise. Now, amid the miseries I’ve witnessed in my own home, I can not but be admonished against any attempt at fusing, by the fire of adolescent, transitory loving, two lives guided by faiths so constantly in antagonisms.”