"Be not hastier than the chastening of the Lord; if He bears with Stephen, so canst thou a little longer. Give love its chance with Stephen before vengeance undoes him wholly!" "Marsyas," Saul protested in a tone of kindly remonstrance, "thou dost convict him by thy very concern." "No!" the young Essene declared, pressing upon the Pharisee in passionate earnestness. "I am only troubled for him. Let me go first and understand him, for it seems that there is doubt in the hearts of his accusers, and after that--" "Thine eye shall not pity him," Saul repeated in warning. "Saul! Saul! He is my beloved friend!" "Moses prepared us for such a sorrow as apostasy among those whom we love. What says the Lawgiver--'thy friend, which is as thine own soul, thy hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death!'" The lifted hands of the young Essene dropped as if they had been struck down. "Death!" he repeated, retreating a step. "Wilt thou kill him?" "I am more thy friend, Marsyas," the Pharisee went on, "because I am zealous for the Law. The heresy is infectious and thou art no more safe from it than any other man. And I would rather sit in judgment over Stephen, whom I do not know, than over thee, who art dear to me as a brother." The young man drew near again. "Dear as a brother!" he said. "Stephen is that to me. Even now didst thou ask if any had supplanted thee in my loves. No; yet my loves have broadened, so that I can take another into my heart. The Lord God be merciful unto me, that I may not be driven to choose one, for defense against the other! Even as ye both love me, love one another! Saul! Thou wast my earlier friend! I can no more endure Stephen's peril than I can uproot thee from my heart!" Saul flinched before the concealed intimation in the words. A wave of pallor succeeded by hardness swept over his face, and Marsyas, observing the change, seized the Tarsian's hands between his own. "Wait until I have seen him," he besought, "and if there be any taint in his fidelity to the faith, I shall stop at no sacrifice to save him. He is, if at all, only momentarily drawn aside, and as the Lord God daily forgives us our sins, let us forgive a brother--" Saul tried to draw away, but the young Essene's imploring hands held his in a desperate clasp. "I will give up mine instruction," he swept on. "I will retire into En-Gadi and take him with me! I will give over everything and become one of their husbandmen; I will have no aim for myself, but for Stephen! And if I fail I will take sentence with him! Wait! Wait! Let me return to Nazareth and get my patrimony! I will come then and take him at once to En-Gadi! Saul!" But Saul threw off the beseeching hands and stepped back from the young man. The two gazed at each other, the Pharisee to discover a crisis in the Essene's look; the Essene to see immovability in the Pharisee.