Here the warrior interrupted the maiden's words, to which he had listened
earnestly, yet with increasing disappointment:

"Ay, I have obeyed you and the Most High. But what it cost me you disdain
to ask. Your story has reached the present time, yet you have made no
mention of the days following my mother's death, during which you were
our guest in Tanis. Have you forgotten what first your eyes and then your
lips confessed? Have the day of your departure and the evening on the
sea, when you bade me hope for and remember you, quite vanished from your
memory? Did the hatred Moses implanted in your heart kill love as well as
every other feeling?"

"Love?" asked Miriam, raising her large eyes mournfully to his. "Oh no.
How could I forget that time, the happiest of my life! Yet from the day
Moses returned from the wilderness by God's command to release the people
from bondage--three months after my separation from you--I have taken no
note of years and months, days and nights."

"Then you have forgotten those also?" Hosea asked harshly.

"Not so," Miriam answered, gazing beseechingly into his face. "The love
that grew up in the child and did not wither in the maiden's heart,
cannot be killed; but whoever consecrates one's life to the Lord. . . . "

Here she suddenly paused, raised her hands and eyes rapturously, as if
borne out of herself, and cried imploringly: "Thou art near me,
Omnipotent One, and seest my heart! Thou knowest why Miriam took no note
of days and years, and asked nothing save to be Thy instrument until her
people, who are, also, this man's people, received what Thou didst
promise."

During this appeal, which rose from the inmost depths of the maiden's
heart, the light wind which precedes the coming of dawn had risen, and
the foliage in the thick crown of the sycamore above Miriam's head
rustled; but Hosea fairly devoured with his eyes the tall majestic
figure, half illumined, half veiled by the faint glimmering light. What
he heard and saw seemed like a miracle. The lofty future she anticipated
for her people, and which must be realized ere she would permit herself
to yield to the desire of her own heart, he believed that he was hearing
to them as a messenger of the Lord. As if rapt by the noble enthusiasm of
her soul, he rushed toward her, seized her hand, and cried in glad
emotion: "Then the hour has come which will again permit you to
distinguish months from days and listen to the wishes of your ow