“Nay, not idolatrous; for the fire rises to things holy. I only plead that God let me walk with Miriamne; I know she will walk nigh Him. Go where you will my feet will bear me thither, undertake what you may, my heart and hand will help; point out any goal of darling desire and thither I’ll carry you, if need be. For you I’ll gladly die, if, at the dying, I have the comforting assurance that soon my other self will join me in the overshadowed land of life.”
“How it would brighten the world, if all who take the holy vows of marriage on their souls were as truly wed in heart as we.” As the twain stood by the white marble figures at sunrise the next morning, equipped for departure, they made a striking picture. The living and the dead; the exemplars of the purest, deepest wedded love committed to serving their fellow man; they rose grandly above the ruins of the place builded by those mighty self-seeking devotees of Astarte.
Bozrah sat in desolation, knowing no hope and having a bitter past only and forever to contemplate; the youthful gospel heralds had all life, rising to new life—hope beyond hope, joy beyond joy, and then life, hope and joy in endless unfoldments, stretching way through measureless eternities, all before them. Miriamne was pensive; Cornelius was chastened by the remembrance of the words she had spoken the day before, and both subdued by the presence of the majestic monument before them.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE SISTERS OF BETHANY.
“Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,
No thought her mind admits;
But ‘He was dead and there he sits!
And He that brought him back is there!’