“Perhaps,” he replied; “but His own people sold Him to the Romans, that they might crucify Him, which was baser still, and just what this Eleazar might have done—sold Him for thirty pieces of silver. I can fancy now how Judas counted them out, and rang them on the floor to be sure it was good money.” “Ah, but, Baithene,” she said, “I know much more about Eleazar. He did not always love money best. They had one dear little girl; Miriam says I remind her of the child. Her eyes were dark, but she says, though mine are grey, they look at her with a look just like her Rachel’s. She was very young when she was taken from them, only twelve years old.” “But what has that to do with Eleazar’s love of money?” asked Baithene. “If their only child is dead, what is the good of money to these two?” “That is the point of the whole,” replied Ethne. “Rachel is not dead. That is to say, they are quite sure she is not dead, they have prayed so much for her, that they may meet her again on earth. And Miriam has had visions and dreams of seeing her, has felt the child’s kiss on her lips, and been waked by it more than once. There was a massacre of their people at some city far away in Asia, and Rachel was torn from them and sold into bondage, like ourselves, brother. And they are always travelling all over the world to try and find her. And they are quite sure they will one day, and it is this that makes Miriam so kind to captive maidens, especially to me.” “But why, after all, does this make Eleazar so fond of money?” said Baithene. “Oh, don’t you see? he is always heaping it up for his Rachel; that when they find her they may ransom her at any price, and give her dainties and clothes and jewels, and every good thing in the world, to make up to her for all she must have suffered.” “Poor dear people!” said Baithene, touched to pity at last. “But what a dream and a delusion! how can they ever find her in this great wilderness of a world? or how would they know her if they did, after all these years, or she them? And, besides, what possible use could all this money be to her, or to any one in the midst of all this ruin, and wreck, and battle? The more possessions the more peril. If the Huns knew of all the treasure, they would be sure to torture Eleazar and Miriam till they gave it up, and then to kill them lest they should bargain any of it back again.” “I know,” replied Ethne gravely, “and so does Miriam, but it would be cruel to undeceive the old man. This money-grubbing and money-heaping is his one link to life and love. It is country to him, and home, and child, and hope.” Baithene sighed and smiled. “Little sister,” he exclaimed tenderly, “I believe you would find an excuse for Judas and his thirty pieces of silver!” She crossed herself. “There is always the Blessed Lord’s excuse for every one,” she said; “_they know not what they do_. Perhaps even Judas did not quite.”