ought that, when the
levites and the Temple-guard approached, he would speak with Samuel's
thunder, answer with Elijah's flame. I thought the stars would shake, the
moon grow red; that he would produce the lost Urim, the vanished Ark, and
so forever silence disbelief. I was wrong, and he was right. Belief is in
the heart, not in the senses; the visible contradicts, but faith is not to
be confuted. No, Mary, the tombs are not dumb. I said so once, I know, but
they answer, and mine will speak. On it perhaps a caricature may be
daubed, and about it prejudice will uncoil. I deserve it. Yet though you
think me wholly base, remember no man is that. Since I met you my life has
been a battle-field in which I have fought with conscience. It has
conquered. I am its slave; it commands, and I obey."

He drew a breath as though he had more to add, and turned to where she
stood. There was no one there. From an olive-branch a red-start piped to
the morning; over the buds of a pomegranate a bee buzzed its delight;
across the leaves of a myrtle a blue spider was busy with its web, but
Mary was no longer there. He peered through the underbrush, and wandered
to the grove beyond. There was no one. He looked to the hill-top: there
was the advancing sun. He looked in the valley: there were the pilgrims'
booths, the grazing camels and fat-tailed sheep.

"She has gone," he told himself. "She would not even listen."

He bent his head. For the first time since boyhood the tears rolled down
his face.

"She might at least have heard me," he thought, and brushed the tears
away. Others came and replaced them. When they had fallen, there were
more.

"Yes, she might at least have listened. If I had no excuse to offer, at
least I had regret." For a moment he fancied her, cruel as only woman is,
hurrying to some unknown goal. The tears he had tried to stanch ceased now
abruptly. "She is right," he mused. "She has left me to conscience and to
death."

He turned again and went back to where he had stood before. As he crossed
the intervening space he unloosed the long girdle which he wore, and from
which still hung the treasury of the twelve. The bag that held it fell
where the bee was buzzing. One end of the girdle he tossed over a branch;
the red-start spread its wings and fled. He looked about. There was a
stone near by; he got it and with a little labor rolled it beneath the
branch. Then he made a noose, very carefully, that it might not come
un