Zillah's spirit was strong and self-assertive to a degree seldom shown by women or men, else she had never proposed to herself, and followed so nearly to completion, the project of self-sacrifice rather than submit to the custom of Astarte. But when with Hiram, her whole soul, her opinions as well as her will, became plastic to the touch of his thoughts and purpose. His soul was the mold into which her nature, melted by the fire of her love, ran and reformed itself. That Baal had not received him to an estate of divinity lessened not a whit her real reverence for Hiram; it only destroyed the sense of awe with which she had come to think of him. His loving humanity was more to her now than even her ideal of his godhead had been. He was her Adonai, her lord indeed. If he had diminished in magnitude, he had come nearer, and so was greater to her. Her heart worshipped and adored, though she did not call it worship. Simple love had wrought all this. Surely love must be divine to perfect that relation between human creatures which formal religion only aims to accomplish between the soul and a god! Zillah looked into the face of Hiram as he bent over her, and thought something like this: "Oh, if a god were like him! If I could feel towards the divinity as I feel towards him! Then I would be a priestess indeed!" "Have no scruple nor dread concerning Astarte," said Hiram, divining her thoughts. "Have I not found out that our religion is all a lie? My absorption into Baal the priests knew to be no more a falsehood than are all their teachings. Hanno is less false to them than they are to the people. See yonder pile they call a temple. From here how small in comparison with the mighty height of the mountains back of it! That little cloud of white smoke and incense from the fire they keep always burning, how insignificant under the white glory of the morning that bursts over Lebanon and fills all the sky above us! How cruel the sacrifice of bird or beast or child seems in a world which the real God has made so beautiful and filled with the sweet air! And how good he must be to have ever thought of making such a creature as my Zillah, and giving me eyes to see her and a heart to love her!" He bent low, and worshipped her with a kiss. "If there be any god, he is one of kindness, who hates cruelty, whose deep abomination must be for such things as you and I have escaped. I would live alone with this thought, and be inspired by it to happiness, if all the world believed the contrary." "Do any people believe as you--as we--do, dear Hiram?"