“I don’t want his daughter.”
“Hoity toity, child. Don’t break your china doll now it is in your hands. What will you have in exchange for your peerless sister?”
“I want revenge.”
“And refuse to take it! Bah, you talk like a fool.”
“I have talked like a fool. But now I swear to hound this hell-cat to his death.”
“And Miriam?”
“As we sow, so must we reap. Let us spare her if we can, but—”
“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, my Michael. I come not to bring peace into the world, but a sword. This is the word of God, my child.”
She had slipped her arm about me and was talking in the gentler manner in which she had comforted me the time I first learned the news of my sister’s fate.
Half an hour later I left the hall, sullen, resolved and conquered. Yes; once more the strength of her spirit had proved greater than the strength of mine. I must see more and be tried again before the final break should come. And when it came, like a flash, like a thief in the night, some who were upon the housetop came not down, but were taken in their sins. And others like myself were spared to learn the glory of God through goodness and mercy in return for sin and evil.