On the floor of a little room Mary lay, her face to the ground. In her ears was the hideousness of a threat that had fastened on her abruptly like a cheetah in the dark. From below came the sound of banqueting. Beyond was the Bitter Sea, the stars dancing in its ripples; and there in the shadow of the evergreens was the hut in which that Sephorah lived to whom long ago Martha had forbidden her to speak. Through the lattice came the scent of olive-trees, and with it the irresistible breath of spring.

In its caress the threat which had made her its own presently was lifted, and mingling with other things fused into them. The kaleidoscope of time and events which visits those that drown possessed her, and for a second Mary relived a year.

There had been the sudden flight from Magdala, the first days with the Master, the gorges of the Jordan, the journey to the coast, the glittering green scales of that hydra the sea. Then the loiterings on the banks of the sacred Leontes, the journey back to Galilee, the momentary halt at Magdala, the sail past Bethsaida, Capharnahum, Chorazin, the fording of the river, the trip to Caesarea Philippi, the snow and gold of Hermon, the visit to Gennesareth, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the return to Bethany.

Her recollections intercrossed, scenes that were trivial ousted others that were grave; the purple limpets of Sidon, the shrine of Ashtaroth, the invective at Bethsaida, the transfiguration on the mountain height, the cure of lepers, and the presence that coerced. Yet through them all certain things remained immutable, and of these, primarily her contact with the Christ.

To her, Jesus was not the Son of man alone, he was the light of this world, the usher of the next. When he spoke, there came to her a sense of frightened joy so acute that the hypostatical union which left even the disciples perplexed was by her realized and understood. She had the faith of a little child. And on the hills and through the intervales over which they journeyed, in the glare of the eager sun or beneath the wattled boughs, the emanations of the Divine filled her with transports so contagious that they affected even Thomas, who was skeptical by birth; and when, after the descent from Hermon, two or three of the disciples mused together over the spectacle which they had seen, the rhyme of her lips parted ineffably. She too had seen him aureoled with the sun, dazzling as the snow-fields on the heights. To her it was ever in that aspect he appeared, with a radiance so intense even that there had been moments in which she had veiled her eyes as from a light that only eagles could support. To her, marvels were as natural as the escape of night. At Beth-Sean she had heard him speak to dumb beasts, and never doubted but that they answered him. At Dan she had seen a short-eared hare rush to him for refuge, and follow him afterwards as a dog might do. At Kinnereth he had called to a lark that from a tree-top was pouring its heart out to the morning, and the lark had fluttered down and nestled in his hand. At Gadara he had tamed wild doves, and a swarm of bees had stopped and glistened in his hair. At Caesarea, when he began to speak, the thrushes that had been singing ceased; and when the parables were delivered, began anew, louder, more jubilant than before, and continued to sing until he blessed them, when they mounted in one long ascending line straight to the zenith above. At his approach the little gold-bellied fish of the Leontes had leaped from the stream. In the suburbs of Sidon the jackals had fawned at his feet. The underbrush had parted to let him pass, and where he passed white roses came and the tenderness of anémones. At times he seemed to her immaterial as a shadow in a dream, at others appalling as the desert; and once when, in prayer, she entered with him into the intimacy of the infinite, she caught the shiver of an invisible harp whose notes seemed to fall from the night. And as she journeyed, her love expanded with the horizon. She loved with a love no woman’s heart has transcended. In its prodigality and ascending gammes there was place for nothing save the Ideal.

The little band meanwhile lived as strangers on earth. Out of her abundant means their simple wants were supplied. She was less a burden than a sustenance; her faith bridged many a doubtful hour; and when, as often occurred, they disputed among themselves concerning their future rank and precedence, Mary dreamed of a paradise more pure.

One evening, near the rushes of Lake Phiala, where the Jordan leaps anew to the light, a Greek merchant who had refused them shelter at Seleucia ambled that way on an ass, and would have stopped, perhaps, but one of the band scoffed him, and he rode on, and disappeared in the haze of the hills.

Unobserved, the Master had seen and heard; presently he called them to where he stood.

“Do not think,” he admonished “do not think that because you imitate the Pharisees you are perfecting your lives. They fast, they pray, they weep, and they mortify the flesh; but to them one thing is impossible, charity to the failings of others. Whoso then shall come to you, be he friend or foe, penitent or thief, receive him kindly. Aid the helpless, console the unfortunate, forgive your enemy, and forget yourselves that is charity. Without it the kingdom of heaven is lost to you. There, there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female; nor can it come to you until the garment of shame is trampled under foot, until two are as one, and the body which is without is as the soul within.”

Thereat, with a gesture of exquisite indulgence, he turned and left them to the stars.

Mary had heard, and in the palingenesis disclosed she saw space wrapped in a luminous atmosphere, such as she fancied lay behind the sun. There, instead of the thrones and diadems of the elect, was an immutable realm in which there was neither death nor life, clear ether merely, charged with beatitudes. And so, when the disciples disputed among themselves, Mary dreamed of diaphanous hours and immaculate days that knew no night, and in this wise lived until from the terrace of Jerusalem’s Temple the Master bade her return to Bethany and wait him there.

Obedience to that command was bitter to her. She did not murmur, however. “Rabboni,” she cried, “let me but do your will on earth, and afterwards save me or destroy me as your pleasure is.”

With that she had gone to her sister’s house, and to the bewildered Martha poured out her heart anew. There could be no question of forgiveness now, of penitence even; her sins, such as they were, had been remitted by one to whom pardon was an attribute. And this doubtless Martha understood, for she took her in her arms unreproachfully and mingled her tears with hers.

Where all is marvel the marvellous disappears. To the accounts which Mary gave of her journeys with the little band that followed the Master, Martha listened with an attention which nothing could distract. With her she sailed on the lovely lake; with her she visited cities smothering in the scent of cassia and of sugar-cane; with her she passed through glens where panthers prowled, and bandits crueller than they. With her eyes she saw the listening multitudes, with her ears she heard again the words of divine forgiveness; and, the lulab and the citron in her hands, she assisted at the Feast of the Tabernacles, and watched the vain attempt to charm the recalcitrant Temple and captivate the inimical town.

For in Jerusalem, in place of the reassuring confidence of peasants, was the irritable incredulity of priests; instead of meadows, courts. Besides, was not this prophet from Galilee, and what good had ever come from there? Then, too, he was not an authorized teacher. He belonged to no school. The followers of Hillel, the disciples of Shammai, did not recognize him. He was merely a fractious Nazarene trained in the shop of a carpenter; one who, by repeating that it was easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, flattered basely the mob of mendicants that surrounded him. The rabble admired, but the clergy stood aloof. When he was not ignored he was disdained. Save the pleb, no one listened.

Presently he spoke louder. Into the grave music of the Syro-Chaldaic tongue he put the mutterings of thunder. Where he had preached, he upbraided; in place of exquisite parables came sonorous threats. He blessed but rarely, sometimes he cursed. That mosaic, the Law, he treated like a cobweb; and to the arrogant clergy a rumor filtered that this vagabond, who had not where to lay his head, declared his ability to destroy the Temple, and to rebuild it, in three days, anew.

A rumor such as that was incredible. Inquiries were made. The rumor was substantiated. It was learned that he healed the sick, cured the blind; that he was in league, perhaps, with the Pharisees.

The Sanhedrim took counsel. They were Sadducees every one. The Pharisees were their hereditary foes. Both were militant, directing men and things as best they could. The Sadducees held strictly to the letter of the Law; the Pharisees held to the Law, and to tradition as well. But the Sadducees were in power, the Pharisees were not. The former endeavored in every way to maintain their authority over the people; and against that authority, against the aristocracy, the priesthood, and the accomplices of foreign dominion, the Pharisees ceaselessly excited the mob. In their inability to overthrow the pontificate, they undermined it. With microscopic attention they examined and criticised every act of the clergy; and, with a view of showing the incompetence of the priests, they affected rigid theories in regard to ritualistic points. Every detail of the ceremonial office was watched by them with eyes that were never pleased. They asserted that the rolls of the Law from which the priests read the Pentateuch were made of impure matter, and, having handled them, the priests had become impure as well. The manner in which the incense was made and offered, the minutiae governing the sacrifices, the legality of hierarchal decisions on each and every possible subject they exerted themselves to show the unworthiness of the officiants, insinuating even that the names of the fathers of many of the priests were not inscribed at Zipporim in the archives of Jeshana. As a consequence, many of those whose rights the Pharisees affected to uphold saw in the hierarchy little more than a body of men unworthy to approach the altar, a group of Herodians who in religion lacked every requisite for the service of God, and who in public and in private were bankrupts in patriotism, morality, and shame.

The possibility, therefore, that this fractious demagogue had found favor with the Pharisees was grave. He was becoming a force. He threatened many a prerogative. Moreover, Jerusalem had had enough of agitators. People were drawn by their promises into the solitudes, and there incited to revolt. Rome did not look upon these things leniently. If they continued, Tiberius was quite capable of putting Judaea in a yoke which it would not be easy to carry. Clearly the Nazarene was seditious, and as such to be abolished. The difficulty was to abolish him and yet conciliate the mob.

It was then that the Sanhedrim took counsel. As a result, and with the hope of entrapping him into some blasphemous utterance on which a charge would lie, they sent meek-eyed Scribes to question him concerning the authority that he claimed. He routed the meek-eyed Scribes. Then, fancying that he might be seduced into some expression which could be construed as treason, they sent young and earnest men to learn from him their duty to Rome. The young and earnest men returned crestfallen and abashed.

The elders, nonplussed, debated. A lévite suspected that the casuistry and marvellous cures of the Nazarene must be due to a knowledge of the incommunicable name, Shemhammephorash, seared on stone in the thunders of Sinai, and which to utter was to summon life or beckon death. Another had heard that while in Galilee he was believed to be in league with Baal-Zebub, Lord of Flies.

To this gossip no attention was paid. Annas, merely the old high-priest, father-in-law of Caiaphas, who officiated in his stead laughed to himself. There was no such stone, there was no such god. Another idea had been welcomed. A festival was in progress; there was gayety in the neighborhood, drinking too; and as over a million of pilgrims were herded together, now and then an offence occurred. The previous night, for instance, a woman had been arrested for illicit commerce.

Annas tapped on his chin. He had the pompous air of a chameleon, the same long, thin lips, the large, protruding eyes.

“Take her before the Galilean,” he said. “He claims to be a rabbi; he must know the Law. If he acquit her, it is heresy, and for that a charge will lie. Does he condemn her he is at our mercy, for he will have alienated the mob.”

A smile of perfect understanding passed like a vagrant breeze across the faces of the elders, and the lévites were ordered to lead the prisoner to the Christ.

They found him in the Woman’s Court. From a lateral chamber a priest, unfit for other than menial services because of a carbuncle on his lip, dropped the wood he was sorting for the altar and gazed curiously at the advancing throng, in which the prisoner was.

She must have been very fair, but now her features were distorted with anguish, veiled with shame. The blue robe she wore was torn, and a sleeve rent to the shoulder disclosed a bare white arm. She was a wife, a mother too. Her name was Ahulah; her husband was a shoemaker. At the Gannath Gate, where her home was, were two little children. She worshipped them, and her husband she adored. Some hallucination, a tremor of the flesh, the flush of wine, and there, circled by a leering crowd, she crouched, her life disgraced, irrecoverable for evermore.

The charge was made, the usual question propounded. The Master had glanced at her but once. He seemed to be looking afar, beyond the Temple and its terraces, beyond the horizon itself. But the accusers were impatient. He bent forward and with a finger wrote on the ground. The letters were illegible, perhaps, yet the symbol of obliteration was in that dust which the morrow would disperse. Again he wrote, but the charge was repeated, louder, more impatiently than before.

Jesus straightened himself. With the weary indulgence of one to whom hearts are as books, he looked about him, then to the dome above.

“Whoever is without sin among you,” he declared, “may cast the first stone.”

When he looked again the crowd had slunk away. Only Ahulah remained, her head bowed on her bare white arm. From the lateral chamber the priest still peered, the carbuncle glistening on his lip.

“Did none condemn you?” the Master asked.

And as she sobbed merely, he added: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”

To the elders this was very discomforting. They had failed to unmask him as a traitor to God, to Rome even, or yet as a demagogue defying the Law. They did not care to question again. He had worsted them three times. Nor could they without due cause arrest him, for there were the Pharisees. Besides, a religious trial was full of risk, and the cooeperation of the procurator not readily to be relied on. It was that cooeperation they needed most, for with it such feeling as might be aroused would fall on Rome and not on them. As for Pilate, he could put a sword in front of what he said.

In their enforced inaction they got behind that wall of prejudice where they and their kin feel most secure, and there waited, prepared at the first opportunity to invoke the laws of their ancestors, laws so cumbersome and complex that the Romans, accustomed to the clearest pandects, had laughed and left them, erasing only the right to kill.

At last chance smiled. Into Jerusalem a rumor filtered that the Nazarene they hated so had raised the dead, that the suburbs hailed him as the Messiah, and that he proclaimed himself the Son of God. At once the Sanhedrim reassembled. A political deliverer they might have welcomed, but in a Messiah they had little faith. The very fact of his Messiahship constituted him a claimant to the Jewish throne, and as such a pretender with whom Pilate could deal. Moreover and here was the point to claim divinity was to attack the unity of God. Of impious blasphemy there was no higher form.

It were better, Annas suggested, that a man should die than that a nation should perish a truism, surely, not to be gainsaid.

That night it was decided that Jesus and Judaism could not live together; a price was placed upon his head, and to the blare of four hundred trumpets excommunication was pronounced.

Of all of these incidents save the last Mary had been necessarily aware. In company with Johanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, Mary, wife of Clopas, and Salome, mother of Zebedee’s children, she had heard him reiterate the burning words of Jeremiah, and seen him purge the Temple of its traffickers; she had heard, too, the esoteric proclamation, “Before Abraham was, I am;” and she had seen him lash the Sadducees with invective. She had been present when a letter was brought from Abgar Uchomo, King of Edessa, to Jesus, “the good Redeemer,” in which the potentate prayed the prophet to come and heal him of a sickness which he had, offering him a refuge from the Jews, and quaintly setting forth the writer’s belief that Jesus was God or else His Son. She had been present, also, when the charge was made against Ahulah, and had comforted that unfortunate in womanly ways. “Surely,” she had said, “if the Master who does not love you can forgive, how much more readily must your husband who does!” Whereupon Ahulah had become her slave, tending her thereafter with almost bestial devotion.

These episodes, one after another, she related to Martha; to Eleazer, her brother; to Simon, Martha’s husband; to anyone that chanced that way. For it was then that the Master had bade her go to Bethany. For a little space he too had forsaken Jerusalem. Now and then with some of his followers he would venture in the neighborhood, yet only to be off again through the scorched hollows of the Ghor before the sun was up.

These things it was that paraded before her as she lay on the floor of the little room, felled by the hideousness of a threat that had sprung upon her, abruptly, like a cheetah in the dark. To Martha and to the others on one subject alone had she been silent, and now at the moment it dominated all else.

From the day on which she joined the little band to whom the future was to give half of this world and all of the next, Judas had been ever at her ear. As a door that opens and shuts at the will of a hand, his presence and absence had barred the vistas or left them clear. At first he had affected her as a scarabaeus affects the rose. She knew of him, and that was all. When he spoke, she thought of other things. And as the blind remain unawakened by the day, he never saw that where the wanton had been the saint had come. To him she was a book of ivory bound in gold, whose contents he longed to possess; she was a book, but one from which whole chapters had been torn, the preface destroyed; and when his increasing insistence forced itself upon her, demanding, obviously, countenance or rebuke, she walked serenely on her way, disdaining either, occupied with higher things. It was of the Master only that she appeared to think. When he spoke, it was to her as though God really lived on earth; her eyes lighted ineffably, and visibly all else was instantly forgot. At that time her life was a dream into whose charmed precincts a bat had flown.

These things, gradually, Judas must have understood. In Mary’s eyes he may have caught the intimation that to her now only the ideal was real; or the idea may have visited him that in the infinite of her faith he disappeared and ceased to be. In any event he must have taken counsel with himself, for one day he approached her with a newer theme.

“I have knocked on the tombs; they are dumb.”

Mary, with that grace with which a woman gathers a flower when thinking of him whom she loves, bent a little and turned away.

“Have you heard of the Buddha?” he asked. “Babylon is peopled with his disciples. One of them met Jesus in the desert, and taught him his belief. It is that he preaches now, only the Buddha did not know of a heaven, for there is none.”

And he added, after a pause: “I tell you I have knocked on the tombs; there is no answer there.”

With that, as a panther falls asleep, his claw blood-red, Judas nodded and left her to her thoughts.

“In Eternity there is room for everything,” she said, when he came to her again.

“Eternity is an abyss which the tomb uses for a sewer,” he answered. “Its flood is corruption. The day only exists, but in it is that freedom which waves possess. Mary, if you would but taste it with me! Oh, to mix with you as light with day, as stream with sea, I would suck the flame that flickers on the walls of sepulchres.”

She shuddered, and he saw it.

“You have taught me to love,” he hissed; “do not teach me now to hate.”

Mary mastered her revolt. “Judas, the day will come when you will cease to speak as you do.”

“You believe, then, still?”

“Yes, surely; and so do you.”

“The day will come,” he muttered, “when you will cease to believe.”

“And you too,” she answered. “For then you will know.”

The dialogue with its variations continued, at intervals, for months. There were times, weeks even, when he avoided all speech with her. Then, abruptly, when she expected it least, he would return more volcanic than before. These attacks she accustomed herself to regard as necessary, perhaps, to the training of patience, of charity too, and so bore with them, until at last Jerusalem was reached. Meanwhile she held to her trust as to a fringe of the mantle of Christ. To her the past was a grammar, its name To-morrow. And in the service of the Master, in the future which he had evoked, she journeyed and dreamed.

But in Jerusalem Judas grew acrider. He had fits of unnecessary laughter, and spells of the deepest melancholy. He quarrelled with anyone who would let him, and then for the irritation he had displayed he would make amends that were wholly slavish. His companions distrusted him. He had been seen talking amicably with the corrupt lévites, the police of the Temple, and once he had been detected in a wine-shop of low repute. The Master, apparently, noticed nothing of this; nor did Mary, whose thoughts were on other things.

At Bethany one evening Judas came to her. The sun, sinking through clouds, placed in the west the tableau of a duel to the death between a titan and a god. There was the glitter of gigantic swords, and the red of immortal blood.

“Mary,” he began, and as he spoke there was a new note in his voice “Mary, I have watched and waited, and to those that watch how many lamps burn out! One after another those that I tended went. There was a flicker, a little smoke, and they had gone. I tried to relight them, but perhaps the oil was spent; perhaps, too, I was like the blind that hold a torch. My way has not been clear. The faith I had, and which, I do not know, but which, it may be, would have been strengthened, evaporated when you came. The rays of the sun I had revered became as the threads of shadows, interconnecting life and death. In them I could see but you. In the jaw of night, in the teeth of day, always I have seen you. Mary, love is a net which woman throws. In casting yours there! unintentionally, I know you caught my soul. It is yours now wholly until time shall cease to be. Will you take it, Mary, or will you put it aside, a thing forever dead?”

Mary made no answer. It may be she had not heard. In the west both titan and god had disappeared. Above, in a field of stars, the moon hung, a scythe of gold. The air was still, the hush of locusts accentuating the silence and bidding it be at rest. In a house near by there were lights shining. A woman looked out and called into the night.

Then, as though moved by some jealousy of the impalpable, Judas leaned forward and peered into her face.

“It is the Master who keeps you from me, is it not?”

“It is my belief,” she answered, simply.

“It was he that gave it to you. Mary, do you know that there is a price upon his head? Do you know that if I cannot slake my love, at least I can gorge my hate? Do you know that, Mary? Do you know it? Now choose between your belief and me; if you prefer the former, the Sanhedrim will have him to-morrow. There, your sister is calling; go and choose.”

It was with the hideousness of this threat in her ears that Mary escaped to the little room where her childhood had been passed and flung herself on the floor. From beyond came the sound of banqueting. Martha was entertaining the Lord, his disciples as well; and Mary knew that her aid was needed. But the threat pinioned and held her down. To accede was death, not of the body alone, but of the soul as well. There was no clear pool in which she might cleanse the stain; there could be no forgiveness, no obliteration, nothing in fact save the loss never to be recovered of life in the diaphanous hours and immaculate days of which she had dreamed so long.

For a little space she tried to comfort herself. Perhaps Judas was not in earnest; perhaps even he had lied. And if he had not, was there not time in plenty? The desert was neighborly. She could follow the Master there, and minister to him till the sky opened and the kingdom was prepared. And the threat, coupled with that perspective, charmed, and for the moment had for her that enticement which the quarrels and kisses of children equally possess. She would warn him secretly, she decided, for surely as yet he did not know; she would warn him, and before the sun was up he could be beyond the Sanhedrim’s reach, and she preparing to follow. For a moment she lost herself in anticipation; then, the threat loosening its hold, she stood up, her face very white in the starlight, her eyes brave and alert. Already her plan was formed; and, taking a vase that she had brought with her from Magdala, she hurried to the room below.

The Master; the disciples; Eleazer, her brother; Simon, her sister’s husband, were all at meat. Martha was serving, and as Mary entered Judas stood up. She moved to where the Master was, and on him poured the contents of the vase. Thomas sniffed delightedly, for now the room was full of fragrance. The Master turned to her and smiled; the homage evidently was grateful. Mary bent nearer. Thomas and Bartholomew joined in loud praises of the aroma of the nard, and under cover of their voices she whispered, “Rabboni, the Sanhedrim has placed a price on

The whisper was drowned and interrupted. Judas had shoved her away. “To what end is this waste?” he asked; and as Mary looked in his face she saw by the expression in it that her purpose had been divined and her warning overheard.

“It is absurd,” he continued, with affected anger. “Ointment such as that has a value. It might better have been saved for the poor.”

Thomas chimed in approvingly; placed in that light it was indeed an extravagance, unnecessary too, and he looked about to his comrades for support. Eleazer and Peter seemed inclined to view the matter differently. A discussion would have arisen, but the Master checked it gently, as was his wont.

“The poor are always with you, but me you cannot always have.”

As he spoke he turned to Judas with that indulgence which was to be a heritage.

Could he know? Judas wondered. Had he heard what Mary said? And, the Master’s speech continuing, he glanced at her and left the room.

The moon had mowed the stars, but the sky was visibly blue. Behind the shoulder of Olivet he divined the silence of Jerusalem, the welcome of the Sadducees, the joy of hate assuaged. There was but one thing now that might deter; and as his thoughts groped through that possibility, Mary stood at his side.

“Judas

He wheeled, and, catching her by the wrists, stared into her eyes.

“Is it yes?”

A shudder seized her. There was dread in it, anguish too, and both were mortal. He had not lied, she saw, and the threat was real.

“Is it yes?” he repeated.

There may be moments that prolong, but there are others in which time no longer is; and as Mary shrank in the blight of Judas’ stare, both felt that the culmination of life was reached.

“No!”

The monosyllable dropped from her lips like a stone, yet even as it fell the banner of Maccabaeus unfurled and flaunted in her face; the voice of Esther murmured, and a vision of Judith saving a nation visited her, and, continuing, made spots on the night.

Judas had flung her from him. She reeled; the violence roused her. Who was she to consider herself when the security of the Master was at stake? How should it matter though she died, if he were safe?

“It is my soul you ask,” she cried. “Take it. If I had a thousand souls, I would give each one for Him.”

But she cried to the unanswering night. Where the road curved about the shoulder of the Mount of Olives, for one second she saw a white robe glisten. Agonized, she called again, but there was no one now to hear.

A little later, when the followers of the Lord issued from the house, Mary lay before the door, her eyes closed, her head in the dust. They touched her. She had fainted.