"Methinks ofttimes that love is a miracle."
"Thou thinkest well."
"And oft my heart hath longed to open my lips to thee."
"Speak on."
"Thou art a man—not a youth, neither womanish. Yet when my eyes did first behold thee, in thy face shone the love of a mother for a child. Herein lieth a great mystery to my heart."
"As all life is one life, so all love is one love. Hath thine own love never exceeded the bounds of thy understanding?"
"Yea. Yea," she answered quickly. Then she paused.
"Say on, Mary," he said, listening with interest.
"Once an infant, brown and foreign, did mistake me for its mother. And on that selfsame day did a brood of motherless nestlings do likewise. Strange sensations came to me, and the strange thought that mayhap there be one motherhood for all creatures as there be a Father to all mankind, and the strangeness of my feeling was the heart-throb of it."
"Wilt thou turn thy face to me, Mary?" he asked. And when she had done so he said, "Thy feet are on the threshold of the mystery thy heart wouldst know."