"But he, will he receive what we should bring?" Said Rachel; "would not bitter-making thought Welling up in him like a secret spring Of brackish issue gushing from beneath A crystal runlet pure as Siloa's brook, Turn for him all our sweetness into gall?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," said Paul; "we cannot know. That were for thee and me defeat indeed-- To be of evil overcome! But, nay, Nay, Rachel, let us hope, and overcome Evil with good. What is impossible? Is this, even this, impossible--through Christ? Love, if love perfect be, hopeth all things. There is in love, as John delights to say, No fear; for perfect love casteth out fear. Perfect our love, be faithless outcast fear No counsellor of ours; but hope instead Far-seeing, with her forward-looking eyes Reflecting hither light from that beyond. Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love Of God is poured forth in our hearts a stream, An overflowing, like the river of God, Fed from the fulness of the Holy Ghost! O, how omnipotent I feel in him! But, behold, Julius! Let me speak straightway!"
"O thou, my keeper"--so to Julius Paul-- "Full courteous to thy prisoner often proved, Nay, more than courteous, kind--beseech thee now Beyond thy wont be courteously kind!" "What wilt thou, then?" said Julius. "Grant it me," Paul answered, "to reprieve, from chains, I ask not, But from his dungeon doom, to see the sun And breathe this vital air, the wretched man Whom, partly for my sake perhaps, thou keepest Immured in dismal dark duress below!"
"Strange being thou!" said Julius answering Paul, Yet answering not, with wonder overpowered. "That wretch, that miscreant, craven, liar, proved Corrupter of the faith of men through bribe-- Nay, but assassin, only that he failed, Assassin disappointed in attempt-- On whose life but thine own?--such man accurst Do I now hear thee interceding for, Thee, prisoner thyself, and that--unless The story of his plot and traitorhood And band of forty sworn conspirators Against thee at Jerusalem, have been Falsely told me--aye, _that_ solely through him! I wonder at thee! Art thou mad? The day Thy countryman confronted by thee quailed, Convicted of his dastard perjury Which aimed to make _thee_ murderer of _him_-- Then, Paul, I thought thee sane enough, as thou With words launched like the thunderbolts of Jove Didst rive him to his rotten innermost! Yet then, even then, relenting strangely, thou Didst melt the hardness that became thee so-- Making thee almost Roman, as I thought-- Melt it into a softness like a woman's. And now again from thee this wanton whim And suit of pity for that damnable! I cannot make thee out--unless it be Thou art moonstruck, and maudlin-mindedness At times seize thee betraying thy manhood thus!"