When he finished the words he hid his face in his hands.
“Thou art weary, my good master,” spoke a Jewish mother present. “Go now and rest. I’ll watch.”
Quickly, gently, firmly he waved her away, as one unwittingly trying to draw him from the gates of heaven.
“It is not usual,” she persisted, “for a man to serve this way; then thou hast other and more important duties, our holy missioner!”
He found voice to speak, and needed to restrain himself from indignant tone. It seemed as if it were impiety now, so great his love, to speak of any duty as higher than that he had toward this one woman, more to him than all the world beside. “No; if I were on the cross she would be there, another Mary; if I am now in torture I’d be no Christian if I did not emulate Him who, amid crucial agonies, between two worlds, cried as inmost thought of His heart, ‘Behold thy Mother!’”
He felt Miriamne’s hand pressing his, and drawing him closer to herself.
“Cornelius, I’m leaning now as never before upon my husband’s loyal heart!”
It seemed to the man as if she were nigh to crying: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” and as if to answer his own thought he exclaimed:
“He will be Father, I as a mother, Miriamne, my Miriamne!”