And Mary stayed with us in the inn, awaiting His return.
Upon the eve of the following Thursday He was caught without the walls, and was held prisoner.
And when we heard He was a prisoner, Mary uttered not a word, but there appeared in her eyes the fulfilment of that promised pain and joy which we had beheld when she was but a bride in Nazareth.
She did not weep. She only moved among us like the ghost of a mother who would not bewail the ghost of her son.
We sat low upon the floor but she was erect, walking up and down the room.
She would stand beside the window and gaze eastward, and then with the fingers of her two hands brush back her hair.
At dawn she was still standing among us, like a lone banner in the wilderness wherein there are no hosts.
We wept because we knew the morrow of her son; but she did not weep for she knew also what would befall Him.
Her bones were of bronze and her sinews of the ancient elms, and her eyes were like the sky, wide and daring.
Have you heard a thrush sing while its nest burns in the wind?
Have you seen a woman whose sorrow is too much for tears, or a wounded heart that would rise beyond its own pain?
You have not seen such a woman, for you have not stood in the presence of Mary; and you have not been enfolded by the Mother Invisible.
In that still moment when the muffled hoofs of silence beat upon the breasts of the sleepless, John the young son of Zebedee, came and said: