The priest had been ill, and had come out now for the first time, drawn by sympathy for the troubles of the Meneshians. He was sitting in a corner on some cushions, but when his name was spoken he rose, in his long black robe with large sleeves, like an English clergyman's gown.
"What do you want of me, Yon Effendi?" he asked.
"I want you to marry me to-morrow morning to Shushan Meneshian."
A murmur of astonishment ran round the room. Old Hohannes was the first to speak. "Dear son, thou art beside thyself. Forget thy foolish words. We will forget them also."
"I am not beside myself, and I speak words of truth and soberness," said Jack, to whom Bible diction came naturally now. "There is no other way."
"One cannot do things after that fashion," the priest said vaguely, being much perplexed, "nor in such haste. One must be careful not to profane a sacrament of the Church."
"Where is the profanation? I love her—more than my life." Crimson to the roots of his hair, and with the blood throbbing in every vein, John Grayson stood, in that supreme moment, revealed to his own heart, and flinging out the revelation as a challenge to all that company of sorrowful, despairing men.
"It is a strange thing, a very strange thing," said Hohannes, stroking his beard.
He expressed the sense of the whole assembly. The proposal was a breach of every convention of their race, amongst whom betrothal invariably precedes marriage. "It cannot be done in that way," was their feeling.