ft spoken of thy love for thy mother. With great tenderness
lovest thou little children, and thy fellow man--aye, have I not oft
heard from thy lips that to do away with the kingdom of swords and
hunger and want and bitterness--aye, to bring in the Kingdom of man's
Brotherhood, thou wouldst be willing to lay down thy life? Strong and
fearless, even tender is thy love as thou art a man. Yet because thou
art a man, there is a love thou knowest not?"

"There is a love my heart doth not divine?"

"Yea, so my wisdom telleth me. Yet when I saw thee first a mother's
love shone in thy face."

"And is there a love greater than a mother's love, Mary?"

"Yea, my Master. There is the love of which this mother-love is born."

"What manner of love is this?" and he leaned toward her as he waited
for her answer.

"Before cometh mother-love, cometh woman's love for a man," she said
after a brief hesitation.

"The mystery thou divinest. Thou art a woman. Tell me--what is the
love of a woman for a man?"

"Thou dost ask me concerning the love in the heart of a woman that doth
make it hunger for one man alone--apart from all the world, and in her
dreams feel his arms about her, and beside a cradle look with him upon
bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh? Dost thou ask me this?"

"I do ask thee, woman."

"And I do answer thee. A woman's love is a white flame on a deathless
altar burning for the High Priest of her heart, where, over their
united love the Shekinah doth hover as holy incense. And when the
flame doth burn and the ear be ever listening for the priest in snowy
raiment that cometh not, then doth the flame be ever consuming itself
and the heart groweth sick, for woman's love desireth to give all."

"And doth thy ear listen for the footsteps of thy sacred altar's one
High Priest?"

"Ask me not, my Master--ask me not. From my heart I have already
lifted the veil too far aside for it is not given woman to speak of her
love, though it is her life. Yet love is strange--love is holy!"

"Thou sayest well 'Love is strange--love is holy.' Love is the breath
of God which corruption hath not power to touch. And as it hath been
ordered of the Creator that woman desire to give all, so hath it been
given to man's love, to ask all--aye, Mary, _to take all_. So there
are not two loves different. A man's love and a woman's love are but
the two parts of that love which is both center and circumference of
all that