The boy assented gravely. The Maccabee slowly lifted his eyes from the young shepherd's face, till they rested on the slope of sky filled with stars visible through the open door.
"And she would have me go on to this city, to the one who awaits me there and whom I shall not be glad to see; take up the labor that will be robbed of its chief joy in its success and live the long, long days of life without her?"
The boy made no answer to this; he knew that this white-faced man was wrestling with himself and comment from him was not expected. By the light of the failing fire without, he saw that face sober, take on shadow and grow immeasurably sad. The minutes passed and he knew that the Maccabee would not speak again.
Thereafter followed three days of silence, except the essential communication or the mutterings of the Maccabee against his weakness and unsteadiness. On the fourth day the Maccabee declared that he was able to travel. Joseph protested, but not for long. He had learned in the sojourn of his guest that this man was in the habit of doing as he pleased. So the shepherd sighed and let him go reluctantly.
"But," he insisted to the last moment, "remember that Pella is a City of Refuge. If Jerusalem ceases to be hospitable, come to Pella."
A thought struck him.
"She," he said in a low tone, "promised that she would come."
"Then expect me," the Maccabee said.
The shepherd boy smiled contentedly and blessed the Maccabee and let him go. As long as the man could see, his young host watched him, and at the summit of the hill the Maccabee turned to wave his final farewell. When the path dipped down the other side of the hill, the man felt that more than the sunshine had been cut off by its great shadow.
He did not go forward with a light heart. The whole of his purpose had suddenly resolved itself into duty. There had been a certain nervous expectancy that was almost fear in the thought of meeting the grown woman he had married in her babyhood. He had lived in Ephesus with an unengaged heart in all the crowd of opportunities for love, good and bad. He had magnetism, strength, aloofness and a certain beauty–four qualifications which had made him over and over again immensely attractive to all classes of Ephesian women. But whatever his response to them, he had not loved. Love and marriage were things so apart from his activities as to be uninteresting. When finally he was called in full manhood to assume without preliminary both of these things, he was uncomfortable and apprehensive. But after he had met the girl in the hills, his sensations of reluctance became emphatic, became an actual dread, so that he thrust away all thought of the domestic side of the life that confronted him, and bitterly resigned all hope in the tender things that were the portion of all men. The villainy of Julian of Ephesus engaged him chiefly, and his punishment. After that, then the establishment of his kingdom, politics, conquest and power–but not love!