He intimated his desire to Ali, who, in turn, broke the news to Zeid. Zeid returned pale and trembling to his home. He loved his wife deeply; yet his devotion to the prophet and the sense of obligation which he owed him as foster-father, for having freed him from servitude, appealed to him strongly. Bowing his head upon his wife's knee, he wept. "Why do you weep, Zeid?" she asked. "Alas!" he cried, "could one who has known thee as wife forbear to weep at having thee leave him?" "But I will never leave my Zeid." "Not even to become the wife of the prophet?" "Mohammed does not want me for his wife," she said quickly. Zeid sighed. "Could you be happy were you his wife?" he asked. The beauty's ambitious spirit rose, but she only said: "Were I made his wife, it would be the will of Allah." Zeid pushed her gently from him, and went out. "Mohammed," he said, seating himself at the prophet's feet, "you care for Zeinab. I come to offer her to you. Obtain for your poor Zeid a writ of divorce." The prophet's face showed his satisfaction. "I could never accept such a sacrifice," he said, hesitatingly. "My life, my all, even to my beloved wife, belongs to my master," returned Zeid. "His pleasure stands to me before aught else." "So be it, then, most faithful," said the prophet. "O Zeid, my more than son, a glorious reward is withheld for you." Then, as ever, a revelation of the Koran came seasonably ere another day, to remove every impediment to the union of Mohammed and Zeinab. "But when Zeid had determined the matter concerning her, and had resolved to divorce her, we joined her in marriage unto thee, lest a crime should be charged on the true believers in marrying the wives of their adopted sons: and the command of God is to be performed. No crime is to be charged on the prophet as to what God hath allowed him." There were those in Medina who resented Mohammed's selfishness in thus appropriating Zeinab to himself, and there were those who questioned the honor of such a proceeding; but this questioning went on mostly among the few Bedouin adherents who had flocked into the town in his service, for the most sacred oath of the highest class of Bedouins has long been, "By the honor of my women!" In none did the prophet's action inspire more disgust than in our two friends, Yusuf and Amzi. Amzi had long since lost all faith in the prophet as a divine representative; and this marriage with Zeinab only confirmed his distrust. "Pah!" he said to Yusuf, "he not only lets his own impulses sway him, but he uses the sanction of heaven to authorize the satisfaction of every desire, no matter who is trampled upon in the proceeding. Was there ever such sacrilege?" Yusuf returned: "For this I am thankful, brother: that you at last apply the term 'sacrilege' to the claims of this impostor." "Think you he is no longer in earnest at all for the raising of his countrymen from idolatry?"