"A weary journey for one so old," she said gently.
Would he remember also that it had been dangerous?
"Nay, but a journey full of works and reward. And I discovered at the end of it that I had lived in error forty years; that Christ never ceases to prove Himself."
Already the forbidden tenets of the Nazarene faith had entered into his words. But feeling somehow that her deflection from uprightness covered her whole life, there was no reason why she should not hear what these people believed and have done with it.
"Art thou a Christian?" she asked timidly.
"I am a believer in Christ, but whether I may call myself one of the blessed I do not know, for they have had faith. But I demanded a sign. Behold it! The ruin of the City of David!"
Her eyes widened with alarm.
"Is there no hope?" she exclaimed.
He looked at her, even in his old age impressed with the immense importance life and love must have to so beautiful and beloved a woman. Presently he said, as if to himself:
"Yea, be thou blessed, O thou Redeemer, that givest life to them to whom life is dear and death approacheth."