l day they have passed; army
after army of Jews, not only strong, but filled with the spirit that
makes men die for a cause! Hast seen Judea, which was once the land of
milk and honey? Wasted! a sight to make Jews gnash their teeth and die
of hate and rage! What hast thou said of Jerusalem? 'The perfection of
beauty and the joy of the whole earth!' threatened with this same
blight that hath made a wilderness of Canaan! If the hour and the
circumstance and the cause will but unite us, this unweaponed host
will stretch away at once in majestic orders of tens of
thousands--legions upon legions that would shame Xerxes for numbers
and that first Caesar for strength. Then--oh, I can see that calm
battle-line pass like the ocean tide over the stony Roman front, and
forget as the sea forgets the pebbles that opposed it!"

She halted suddenly on the edge of tears. The Maccabee, astonished and
moved, looked at her in silence. This, then, was what even the women
of the shut chambers of Palestine expected of him--if he freed Judea!
If such spirit prevailed over the armies of men assembling in the Holy
City, what might he not achieve with their help! The Maccabee felt
confidence and enthusiasm fill his heart to the full. He rose.

"Our blows will never weaken nor our hearts grow faint," he said, "if
we have such eloquence and such beauty to inspire us."

She drew back a little. His persistent happiness of mood fell cruelly
on her flinching heart at that moment. He noted her sudden relapse
into dejection, with disappointment.

"Do not be sad," he said. "Discomforts do not last for ever."

"It is not that," she said in a low voice. "I have buried beloved dead
on this journey and I have surrendered all my substance to a
pillager."

There was the silence of arrested thought. The Maccabee was taken
aback and embarrassed. He felt that he was an intruder. But even the
flush on her face in restraining emotion made her loveliness more than
ever winsome. He let his hand drop softly on hers. But in the
genuineness of his sympathy he was not too moved to feel that her hand
warmed under his clasp.

"The difference between a fool and a blunderer," he said contritely,
"is that the blunderer is always sorry for his mistakes. I will go.
None has a right to refuse another his hour to weep."

He hesitated a moment, as if he would have kissed her hand. She
glanced up at him with eyes too filled with the darkness of grief for
words.

The slo