If we were married you might come to think like me, or I might come to think like you.

It is a matter of the spirit and the future, not of the body and the present.

Every day Christians wed those who are not Christians; sometimes, even, they convert them." "Yes, I know; but in my case this may not be--even if I wished that it should be." "Why not ?" "Because both by the command of my murdered father and of her own desire my mother laid it on me with her dying breath that I should take to husband no man who was not of our faith." "And do you hold yourself to be bound by this command ?" "I do, without doubt and to the end." "However much you might chance to love a man who is not a Christian ?" "However much I might chance to love such a man." Marcus let fall her hand.

"I think I had best go," he said.
"Yes." Then came a pause while he seemed to be struggling with himself.
"Miriam, I cannot go." "Marcus, you must go." "Miriam, do you love me ?" "Marcus, may Christ forgive me, I do." "Miriam, how much ?" "Marcus, as much as a woman may love a man." "And yet," he broke out bitterly, "you bid me begone because I am not a Christian." "Because my faith is more than my love.

I must offer my love upon the altar of my faith--or, at the least," she added hurriedly, "I am bound by a rope that cannot be cut or broken.