There, as in her sanctuary, she one day sat down to think and pray. How wearied she was with her woman's work in the camp! Had there been about her the duties and affections of a home, it would have been different; for she was made to love, and love intensely. What a wealth of devotion she poured upon her blind brother! Yet his care did not furnish sufficient diversion for her excited brain and heart. The form of her father was, alas! now only a memory. It was always with her; but it drained her soul, as the dry desert drinks up the streams that come from the mountains, and yet remains a desert, flowerless, fountainless. Her brother Benjamin? Ah, it is hard to love where we do not respect; and while she would have given her life for his had emergency required, the thought of him made her more lonely, since even brotherhood was soiled with impiety and treason. If Dion's friendship now and then flashed a pleasing thought through her mind, it was only like a warm glow in the dark cloud of her prevailing mood, and as quickly gone. Yet she was startled when she noted how frequently that brightness shot through the cloud; and she put herself under inner penance after each recollection of the noble-hearted Greek. Indeed, she tried to hate him for his offered love. It seemed incongruous, hypocritical, for a Greek to be so generous and good. A Greek! Her soul tortured itself with detestation of that whole racial type; yet somehow the man persisted in standing out from his race, as a vein of gold gleaming from its bed of baser earth. By strong effort she drove his image from her imagination. It was not probable that they would meet again; and if they did, he would see now no helpless girl appealing to his pity, but a woman, strong and vengeful, whose words would provoke his hatred of her as the embodiment of her hated people. So, as she had said, her heart was empty--empty of all things that ought to furnish a woman's nature. She seemed to herself an unsexed soul, a mass of reckless, excited energy which could find repose only in outward action. Oh, to be a man, strong of arm, as tireless as daring! She looked with contempt upon her feminine attire, which she thought no longer fitted her changed nature. If she might not march in the ranks of the soldiers, why could she not engage in the secret service of which she had heard Jonathan, the Crafty, speak as necessary to their defense? She might act as a spy. The little band of patriots could not hope to hold out ultimately against the overwhelming numbers that Antiochus would send, unless their valor were seconded by deep plotting. To act the part she contemplated would require her to assume various attire. Would not heaven grant her dispensation from the letter of the law that made it a shame for a woman to put on a man's apparel?