But she freed her hands to cover her face and weep.  Kenkenes sighed from the very heaviness of his unhappiness.

“Thou shouldst hate me, if, to win thee, I bowed in pretense to thy God,” he said weakly.

Perhaps his words awakened a hope or perhaps they made her desperate.  Whatever the sensation, she raised her head and spoke with a sudden assumption of calm: 

“Naught could make me hate thee, Kenkenes, but I should know if thou didst pretend.  Thou art as transparent as air.  Thou art honest, guileless—­too good to be lost to the Bosom that must have thrilled with joy when he beheld what a beautiful soul His hands had wrought.  Few of His believers have conceived the greatness of Jehovah as thou hast, O my Kenkenes.  In that art thou proved ripe for His worship.  Thou hast found His might to be so limitless that thou thinkest thyself as naught in His sight.  In that hast thou gone astray.  The mind is gross that can not heed the weak and small.  Shall we say that the spinner of the gossamer, the painter of the rose is not fine?  Shall He forget His daintiest, frailest works for His mightiest?  Thou, artist and creator thyself, Kenkenes, answer for Him.  Nay; not so!  He, who hath an ear to the lapse between an hour and an hour, hath counted His song-birds and numbered His blossoms.  For are they, being small, less wondrous than the heavens, His handiwork?  Shall He then fail to hear the voice of His sons in whom He hath taken greater pains?”

She paused for a moment and looked at him.  His expression urged her on.

“Does it not trouble thee when I, whom thou hast but lately known, am in sorrow?  How much more then does thine unhappiness vex His holy heart, who fashioned thee, who blew the breath of life into thy nostrils!  Wilt thou deny the Hand that led thee to me, here, in this hour—­that cared for me during the season of distress and peril?  Nay, my beloved, there is no greater virtue than gratitude.  It is an essential in the make-up of the great of heart—­wilt thou put it out of thy fine nature?”

Again she paused, and this time he answered in a half-whisper: 

“Thou dost shake me in mine heresy.”

“It is but newly seated in thy credence,” she said eagerly, “and is easy to be put aside—­easier to cast off than was the idolatry.  Put it away in truth from thee and grieve thy Lord God no more.”

“Would that I could, now, this hour.  We may discipline the soul and chasten the body, but how may we govern the mind and its disorderly beliefs?  It laughs at the sober restraint of the will; my heart is broken for its sake, but it is reprobate still.”

“And I have not won thee?” she asked, shrinking from him.

“Give me time—­teach me more—­return not to Goshen.  Come back to Memphis with me!” he begged in rapid words, pressing after her.  “No man uncovered so great a problem, alone, in a moment.  How shall I find God in an hour?”