But Ruth scarce listened; she insisting said: "Perhaps of Stephen some report thou bringest, Hint doubtless of new danger threatening him!" "Nay, Ruth, no longer danger threatens now Thy husband; that is past, and he is safe." "Thank God," said Ruth; "but stay, I dare not yet Thank God. Tell me, have then our rulers ceased To frown on Stephen preaching Jesus Christ? Or Stephen, will he cease and preach no more? This cannot be, for Stephen is such stuff As never yet did bend to mortal beck; And that--our rulers surely have not changed Thus suddenly their mind. Thou art deceived, They have deceived thee--Stephen is not safe; It is their guile to make us think him safe, He off his guard will fall an easier prey Into their hands. Rachel, it was not kind, Not faithful in thee so to be deceived. More love had made thee more suspicious. I Suspect forever everybody; thee Now I suspect. Thou keepest something back, Or haply palterest with a double sense. Rachel, I charge thee, I adjure thee, speak And tell me all. Stephen is dead! Say that-- Is dead! Thou meantest that by, 'He is safe.' They have stoned him, stoned my husband, stoned the man That was the truest Hebrew of them all!" Though by her words Ruth challenged frank reply, Yet by her tones and by her eager looks She deprecated more what she invoked. This Rachel saw, and answered not a word. Then Ruth gainsaid what Rachel would not say: "They have not done it, could not do it, he-- Rachel, it is not true, unsay it, quick, It was a cruel jest to tease me so, Thou art not a wife, thou art not a mother, else Thou never hadst conceived so ill a jest!" Rachel was tortured, but she could not speak, And Ruth, secure in sense of respite yet, Went on invoking what she would not hear: "Why art thou silent? Speak, and keep not back The truth, whatever it may be; there's naught So soothing and so healing as the truth. But I will not believe that he is dead. Thou didst not know my husband. Dead! dead! dead! I tell thee, Rachel, _that_ is something past Imagining dreadful, hopeless. To be dead Is--not to love, and not to speak to those Who loved and love thee, not to hear them speak, Saying they loved and love thee and lament They ever gave thee cause of grief and now Are different and would die a thousand deaths To have been different then when thou couldst know-- Death, Rachel,--but of death what canst thou learn, For thou art but a child and never wast, Never, to such a husband such a wife-- To vex the noblest heart that ever broke!"