“Adam said something like that of Eve.”
“Don’t interrupt me, Miriamne. The Jewish maiden Zainab gave Mohammed, of Bozrah, the poisoned lamp which ruined his health; the Jewish Rizpah has such a lamp. See me, wrinkled, hair whitened, all too soon; chivalry, morality and piety dragged out of me bit by bit. I stand here the caricature of what I was or what I should be. I’m fit for neither war nor courtship. I’d make a pretty show attempting to court Rizpah! I’ve forgotten how such things are done, and, besides, I’m not the original Sir Charleroy she wed. Let her find him, or his counterfeit, and be happy. The original Sir Charleroy and Rizpah loved each other desperately, but these that I know hate each other as desperately. I tell thee it would be legalized adultery for these latter two to live under the same roof, pleading as justification the vows of the other two! Miriamne, I tell thee that thou mayst tell it on the house tops, or hill tops, as I’ll cry it through eternity, if permitted, Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, of Gerash and Bozrah, died long ago! The devil stole their bodies, put an imp’s spirit in each, and then parted them forever. If they ever meet it will be by the fiend’s device, that he may revel over their warrings with each other! Ah, ha! What the Roman arena was to the blood-thirsty populace, such to the fiends the homes of the world when full of tumults!”
And Miriamne, alarmed by the outbreak, tried to calm her father:
“Oh, father, you will need mercy some day; merit it by bestowing it. You suffer an unforgiving spirit to inflame your passion!”
“Forgiving? What’s the use? I’ve vainly tried mercy!”
“Try once more. The injured have resource so long as they have power to forgive. Remember Him who in the great extremity cried: ‘They know not what they do!’ Trust Rizpah once more!”
“I do not see the shadow of a peg on which to hang a trust.”
“You, a Teutonic Knight of St. Mary!”
“Thank God Mary was not a Rizpah!”