cost the
mother! Not all the selfishness of joy over the prospect could
keep her blind to the consequences of release, now that it was
at hand. The old happy life could never be again. If she went
near the house called home, it would be to stop at the gate and
cry, "Unclean, unclean!" She must go about with the yearnings of
love alive in her breast strong as ever, and more sensitive even,
because return in kind could not be. The boy of whom she had so
constantly thought, and with all sweet promises such as mothers
find their purest delight in, must, at meeting her, stand afar
off. If he held out his hands to her, and called "Mother, mother,"
for very love of him she must answer, "Unclean, unclean!" And this
other child, before whom, in want of other covering, she was spreading
her long tangled locks, bleached unnaturally white--ah! that she was
she must continue, sole partner of her blasted remainder of life. Yet,
O reader, the brave woman accepted the lot, and took up the cry which
had been its sign immemorially, and which thenceforward was to be her
salutation without change--"Unclean, unclean!"

The tribune heard it with a tremor, but kept his place.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Two women dying of hunger and thirst. Yet"--the mother did not
falter--"come not near us, nor touch the floor or the wall. Unclean,
unclean!"

"Give me thy story, woman--thy name, and when thou wert put here,
and by whom, and for what."

"There was once in this city of Jerusalem a Prince Ben-Hur, the
friend of all generous Romans, and who had Caesar for his friend.
I am his widow, and this one with me is his child. How may I tell
you for what we were sunk here, when I do not know, unless it was
because we were rich? Valerius Gratus can tell you who our enemy
was, and when our imprisonment began. I cannot. See to what we
have been reduced--oh, see, and have pity!"

The air was heavy with the pest and the smoke of the torches, yet
the Roman called one of the torch-bearers to his side, and wrote
the answer nearly word for word. It was terse, and comprehensive,
containing at once a history, an accusation, and a prayer. No common
person could have made it, and he could not but pity and believe.

"Thou shalt have relief, woman," he said, closing the tablets.
"I will send thee food and drink."

"And raiment, and purifying water, we pray you, O generous Roman!"

"As thou wilt," he replied.

"God is good," said the widow, sobbing. "May h