offer you less than the
place of wife?"

"Assuredly not," she replied, "since to do so would be to insult you.
But neither do I suppose that you really meant to offer me that place."

"Yet that was in my mind, Miriam."

Her eyes grew soft, but she answered:

"Then, Marcus, I pray you, put it out of your mind, since between us
rolls a great sea."

"Is it named Caleb?" he asked bitterly.

She smiled and shook her head. "You know well that it has no such name."

"Tell me of this sea."

"It is easy. You are a Roman worshipping the Roman gods; I am a
Christian worshipping the God of the Christians. Therefore we are
forever separate."

"Why? I do not understand. If we were married you might come to think
like me, or I might come to think like you. It is a matter of the spirit
and the future, not of the body and the present. Every day Christians
wed those who are not Christians; sometimes, even, they convert them."

"Yes, I know; but in my case this may not be--even if I wished that it
should be."

"Why not?"

"Because both by the command of my murdered father and of her own desire
my mother laid it on me with her dying breath that I should take to
husband no man who was not of our faith."

"And do you hold yourself to be bound by this command?"

"I do, without doubt and to the end."

"However much you might chance to love a man who is not a Christian?"

"However much I might chance to love such a man."

Marcus let fall her hand. "I think I had best go," he said.

"Yes."

Then came a pause while he seemed to be struggling with himself.

"Miriam, I cannot go."

"Marcus, you must go."

"Miriam, do you love me?"

"Marcus, may Christ forgive me, I do."

"Miriam, how much?"

"Marcus, as much as a woman may love a man."

"And yet," he broke out bitterly, "you bid me begone because I am not a
Christian."

"Because my faith is more than my love. I must offer my love upon the
altar of my faith--or, at the least," she added hurriedly, "I am bound
by a rope that cannot be cut or broken. To break it would bring down
upon your head and mine the curse of Heaven and of my parents, who are
its inhabitants."

"And if I became of your faith?"

Her whole face lit up, then suddenly its light died.

"It is too much to hope. This is not a question of casting incense on an
altar; it is a matter of a changed spirit and a new life. Oh! have done.
Why do you play with me?"

"A changed spirit and a new life. At