he listened merely to the boy at
his side. "Death is your servant," she cried. "You command, it obeys." The
ulcer oozed, the face grew vague, he gave no answer. She stood up and
menaced him. "Behind you spectres crouch; you may not see them. I do;
their name is To-morrow." The murmurs of the boy were her sole reply. The
roof crumbled, the flooring disappeared, the emperor faded, and Mary
stared into space.

The moon that had struck aslant the tomb had gone, but where its beams had
fallen the message remained. There is light somewhere, it repeated. Across
the heavens a meteor shot like a bee. In the air voices whispered
confusedly. It is not in Rome, one seemed to say. It is not on earth,
another called.

Mary clutched at her beating breast. The sky now was an opening rose. What
the sunset had sown the dawn would reap. In the night that had enveloped,
day raised a lattice, and through it came a gust of higher thought. It is
not in revenge, a voice whispered. It is not in regret, another called.

"I know it," Mary gasped. "Yes, yes, I know it now. It is in faith."

"And in abnegation of self."

The stone which stood before the sepulchre had rolled away. At her side
the Christ stood. In his eyes were golden parables, in his face Truth
shone revealed. She stared, dumb with the unexpected joy of belief
confirmed, blinded by the sudden light, while he who had rent the bonds of
death passed on into the budding day.

When the brief procession of the night before returned to the tomb, it was
empty. At the door Mary lay, her arms outstretched and vacant.

FINIS MARIAE.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

The table of contents has been added in the electronic version.

The following changes have been made to the text:

page 36, "forget" changed to "forgot", "Hew" changed to "Her"
page 38, "a" added before "sword"
page 46, period added following "roof"
page 108, "surperber" changed to "superber"
page 118, "is" changed to "it"

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MAGDALEN***

CREDITS

March 5, 2010

Project Gutenberg TEI edition 1
Produced by Bryan Ness, Stefan Cramme and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Goo