Artaban re-entered the cottage. He turned his face to the
east and prayed:
"God of truth, forgive my sin! I have said the thing that is not, to
save the life of a child. And two of my gifts are gone. I have spent
for man that which was meant for God. Shall I ever be worthy to see the
face of the King?"
But the voice of the woman, weeping for joy in the shadow behind him,
said very gently:
"Because thou hast saved the life of my little one, may the Lord bless
thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be
gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give
thee peace."
IN THE HIDDEN WAY OF SORROW
Then again there was a silence in the Hall of Dreams, deeper and more
mysterious than the first interval, and I understood that the years of
Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the stillness of that clinging
fog, and I caught only a glimpse, here and there, of the river of his
life shining through the shadows that concealed its course.
I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous Egypt, seeking
everywhere for traces of the household that had come down from
Bethlehem, and finding them under the spreading sycamore-trees of
Heliopolis, and beneath the walls of the Roman fortress of New Babylon
beside the Nile--traces so faint and dim that they vanished before him
continually, as footprints on the hard river-sand glisten for a moment
with moisture and then disappear.
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