ke with a sudden
assumption of calm:

"Naught could make me hate thee, Kenkenes, but I should know if thou
didst pretend. Thou art as transparent as air. Thou art honest,
guileless--too good to be lost to the Bosom that must have thrilled
with joy when he beheld what a beautiful soul His hands had wrought.
Few of His believers have conceived the greatness of Jehovah as thou
hast, O my Kenkenes. In that art thou proved ripe for His worship.
Thou hast found His might to be so limitless that thou thinkest thyself
as naught in His sight. In that hast thou gone astray. The mind is
gross that can not heed the weak and small. Shall we say that the
spinner of the gossamer, the painter of the rose is not fine? Shall He
forget His daintiest, frailest works for His mightiest? Thou, artist
and creator thyself, Kenkenes, answer for Him. Nay; not so! He, who
hath an ear to the lapse between an hour and an hour, hath counted His
song-birds and numbered His blossoms. For are they, being small, less
wondrous than the heavens, His handiwork? Shall He then fail to hear
the voice of His sons in whom He hath taken greater pains?"

She paused for a moment and looked at him. His expression urged her on.

"Does it not trouble thee when I, whom thou hast but lately known, am
in sorrow? How much more then does thine unhappiness vex His holy
heart, who fashioned thee, who blew the breath of life into thy
nostrils! Wilt thou deny the Hand that led thee to me, here, in this
hour--that cared for me during the season of distress and peril? Nay,
my beloved, there is no greater virtue than gratitude. It is an
essential in the make-up of the great of heart--wilt thou put it out of
thy fine nature?"

Again she paused, and this time he answered in a half-whisper:

"Thou dost shake me in mine heresy."

"It is but newly seated in thy credence," she said eagerly, "and is
easy to be put aside--easier to cast off than was the idolatry. Put it
away in truth from thee and grieve thy Lord God no more."

"Would that I could, now, this hour. We may discipline the soul and
chasten the body, but how may we govern the mind and its disorderly
beliefs? It laughs at the sober restraint of the will; my heart is
broken for its sake, but it is reprobate still."

"And I have not won thee?" she asked, shrinking from him.

"Give me time--teach me more--return not to Goshen. Come back to
Memphis with me!" he begged in rapid words, pressing after h