The Master seemed depressed. The great secret which in all the world he alone possessed may have weighed with him. But he turned to Mary and looked at her. As he looked she bent yet lower. The marvel of her hair was unconfined; it fell about her in tangling streams of gold and flame, while on his feet there fell from her tears such as no woman ever shed before. In the era of primitive hospitality the daughters of kings had not disdained to unlatch the sandals of their fathers’ guests; but now, at the feet of Mercy, for the first time Repentance knelt. And still the tears continued, unstanched and undetained. Grief, something keener still perhaps, had claimed her as its own. She bent lower. Then Misery looked up at Compassion.
The Master stretched his hand. For a moment it rested on her head. She quivered and clutched at her throat; and as he withdrew that hand, in which all panaceas were, from her gown she took a little box, opened it, and dropping the contents where the tears had fallen, with a sudden movement she caught her hair and poured its lava on his feet.
An aroma of beckoning oases filled the small room, passed into the recess, mounted to the roof, pervaded and penetrated it, and escaped to the sky above.
And still she wept. Judas no longer saw her tears, he heard them. They fell swiftly one after another, like the ripple of the rain. A sob broke from her, but in it was something which foretokened peace, the sob which comes to those who have conceived a despairing hope, and suddenly intercept its fulfilment. Her hands trembled; the little box fell from her and broke. The noise it made exorcised the silence.
The Master turned to his host. “I have a word to say to you.”
Simon stroked his beard and bowed.
“There was once a man who had two debtors. One owed him five hundred pence, the other fifty. Both were poor, and because of their poverty the debt of each he forgave.”
For an instant Jesus paused and seemed to muse; then, with that indulgence which was to illuminate the world, “Tell me, Simon,” he inquired, “which was the more grateful?”
Simon assumed an air of perplexity, and glanced cunningly from one guest to another. Presently he laughed outright.
“Why, the one who owed the most, of course.”
Reulah suppressed a giggle. By the expression of the others it was patent that to them also the jest appealed. Only Judas did not seem to have heard; he sat bolt upright, fumbling Mary with his violent eyes.
The Master made a gesture of assent, and turned to where Mary crouched. She was staring at him with that look which the magnetized share with animals.
“You see her?”
Straightening himself, he leaned on his elbow and scrutinized his host.
“Simon, I am your guest. When I entered here there was no kiss to greet me, there was no oil for my head, no water for my feet. But this woman whom you despise has not ceased to embrace them. She has washed them with her tears, anointed them with nard, and dried them with her hair. Her sins, it may be, are many, but, Simon, they are forgiven—”
Simon, Reulah, the others, muttered querulously. To forgive sins was indeed an attribute which no one, save the Eternal, could arrogate to himself.
“—for she has loved much.”
And turning again to Mary, who still crouched at his side, he added:
“Your sins are forgiven. Go now, and in peace.”
But the fierce surprise of the Pharisees was not to be shocked into silence. Reulah showed his teeth; they were pointed and treacherous as a jackal’s. Simon loudly asserted disapproval and wonder too.
“I am amazed—” he began.
The Master checked him:
“The beginning of truth is amazement. Wonder, then, at what you see; for he that wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall rest.”
The music of his voice heightened the beauty of the speech. On Mary it fell and rested as had the touch of his hand.
“Messiah, my Lord!” she cried. “In your breast is the future, in your heart the confidence of God. Let me but tell you. There are those that live whose lives are passed; the tombs do not hold all of those that are dead. I was dead; you brought me to life. I had no conscience; you gave me one, for I was dead,” she insisted. “And yet,” she added, with a little moan, so human, so sincere, that it might have stirred a Caesar, let alone a Christ, “not wholly dead. No, no, dear Lord, not wholly dead.”
Again her tears gushed forth, profuser and more abundant than before; her frail body shook with sobs, her fingers intertwined.
“Not wholly dead,” she kept repeating. “No, no, not wholly dead.”
Jesus touched his treasurer.
“She is not herself. Lead her away; see her to her home.” And that the others might hear, and profit as well, he added, in a higher key, “Deference to a woman is always due.”
And to those words, which were to found chivalry and banish the boor, Judas led Mary from the room.
VI
“Are you better?”
The road that skirted the lake had branched to the left, and there an easy ascent led to the hill beyond. On both sides were carpets of flowers and of green, and slender larches that held their arms and hid the sky. Above, an eagle circled, and on the lake a sail flapped idly.
“Yes, I am better,” Mary answered.
From her eyes the perils had passed, but the splendors remained, accentuated now by vistas visible only to herself. The antimony, too, with which she darkened them had gone, and with it the alkanet she had used on her cheeks. Her dress was olive, and, contrary
