“It was a strange week, with a great shadow hanging on the air which no one noticed. The gay scenes and the excitement of the city attracted me, a wild longing to mingle once more with the crowd and laugh with it. I listened to the sermons in the Temple, and then went away alone and walked through the teeming streets. I heard some speaking in open admiration of Him, some in more whispered tones; others stood in dark groups, with scowling faces hidden by sinister smiles. I passed by these unheeding, for who ever yet with mind pre-occupied noticed word or look of utter strangers? At night I wandered away to the village to see our Master. When supper was over it was His custom to go forth alone. I think the hard life and the strain were beginning to tell on Him, though His face was more quiet and peaceful even than it used to be. And then something prompted me to tell Him all that was going on in the city. I was gay and light-hearted, trying to crush down something which I could not understand. He listened and was interested, and some instinct within me made me laugh and talk more gaily than ever before. “So each night of that last week we walked and talked together, and the terrible blindness that hung on all was hanging over me. I knew that He was silent, but I put it down to the silence of fatigue, not gathering Death. And then on the Thursday I came again, and the time was short, but only at our parting did I recognize anything about to come. For then, as if by a sudden impulse, He took my hands and looked at me. Such a face I had never seen. It seemed as if in one swift lightning flash it was transformed from peace to agony. I had never seen such eyes, such look of utter ruin on a face, such haggard, drooping lines. Every feature was pinched with fearful pain—a child’s face—a man’s soul—the spirit of a God. They strove together in horrible working contrast, and that childish weakness which I had never seen before seemed to me most terrible of all. It seemed as if I saw through the strength to the utter weakness. “And then every spark of feeling within me was drawn out to Him. I don’t know whether as a mother or a woman, since surely both are one. I felt as if I had it within me to take His weary, racking pain upon my shoulders, to ease Him of this hellish chain that never kills. And so, in what to some may seem a terrible presumption, I stretched out my arms to draw Him to me, for I was young and strong, with a power born of love. And then, with a cry in which weakness and pain, and tenderness, and love, were all intermingled, He spoke my name, ‘Mary,’ and came forward with arms outstretched to meet my own. And suddenly the weakness died from His face, and left only a purity and strength so deep that I felt that I had been unconsciously a tempter. And with a voice so kind and grave and clear that it seemed to convey a hidden meaning which I could not understand, He said, ‘Touch me not. I have not yet ascended to my Father.’