“What Miriamne says is to me all mysticism! Explain.”
“I do not know how, beyond this: I’m God’s bride by consecration, and He will keep me for His work.”
“Can’t I share it?” almost piteously, the chaplain asked.
“Truly, yes, wherever you may be, with me or not.”
“Oh, Miriamne, your passionate enthusiasm entrances me. You are an inspiration to me. I fear I shall languish aside from you.”
“I shall love you more, Cornelius, as you are more grandly, heroically self-sacrificing.”
“Any thing to win Miriamne’s constant love!”
“I shall love you, Cornelius, in a deep, holy way, only and forever. I’d be ashamed to be thus frank, but that I have a love that is as pure as the heaven of its birth. Be true to your God, to your mission; a little while and then at the City of Light, life’s brief dream over, the first, after God, I’ll ask for will be the faithful man whom my heart knows.”
“Ah, what can I do? I’m all zeal; willing to go, but the glow of your cheeks, the flash of your eyes, even in the midst of such noble converse, drag me away from my resolves. That that stimulates me, unmans me, or reminds me I am a man and a lover.”