"Yes, Magdalene, you looked sweet then, but you was so confounded mean." She hesitated, and then said, "Why, Peter?" "Well, Magdalene, you led me right into it, just as you do everyone you talk with." Magdalene looked on poor Peter, who seemed to wilt and fade under the smiling searchlight of the now happy Jewess. "John," she said quite firmly, "please relieve Aunt Mary by holding me in your arms while I talk." When he had taken her she looked in his face and laughingly said, "Queer, isn't it, John? Once you wanted to love me and I would not let you, now I want you to love me and you will not." John choked and sobbed and finally said, "I do love you, Magdalene; we all love you; the angels love you, and that is why they are waiting to take you home." A sweet smile lingered on the swooning beauty's face while John gently passed his hand over her auburn waves, which seemed to awake her again, and she said, "Peter, where do you think Jesus is now?" "I do not know, Magdalene, I am all at sea." "Peter, he may be right here now and knowing all that we are thinking." Peter dropped his jaw. Joseph craned his long neck, while Nicodemus, the disciples and bystanders all leaned forward, to catch, if possible, from the angel face the last gleam which might swing the gates of death ajar. "I know," she continued, "for I have been talking with him." At this they all drew near, when she said, "His death upon the cross was natural, simply the separation of himself from his body." "Has he gone up to heaven, from whence he came?" inquired Joseph. "Why, Joseph, you are worse than Peter; do you think heaven is up above the moon?" "Magdalene, you know what Jesus said when alive--" "When alive, Joseph; he is alive now and possibly hears every word you say." "Be that as it may, Magdalene; he has said from the beginning, 'I came down from heaven.'" Magdalene scowled, and with a painful effort bit her lip as she tried to form a convincing sentence, and then began: "Down in a well and up on a hill are material positions, while down in hell and up in heaven are spiritual conditions." "Think of Jesus as living in a purely spiritual condition and volunteering to take on humanity and live with us as animals. In that he came down from on high to that low, hellish animal, condition of last Friday. And, Joseph, when you thought you were laying Jesus in your tomb, he was not necessarily there. I know that I was face to face with Jesus, and there are no scars on his hands or thorns in his brow." Nicodemus, kneeling beside her, said: "I know you're weary, but can you answer this--If Jesus was not in his body when he spoke your name, how did you hear his voice?"