Annas sat quite alone in the council chamber of the Sanhedrim. He had come early in order that he might set in order certain papers, and also that he might with due deliberation determine the course of procedure for the morning\'s session. But this was not easy; things looked dubious for the success of his enterprise; he was forced to acknowledge as much to himself.

"This miracle now," he thought, stroking his hoary beard reflectively, "was a most unfortunate thing--most untimely. The multitude seem quite carried away by it. Should we adopt violent measures with these pernicious persons it would, I fear, fail to commend itself to the populace."

At this point in his cogitations he was disturbed by the sound of a slow heavy step ascending the stair; the door opened and Caiaphas entered. Annas looked at him in surprise, noting with cold disapproval his haggard face, his disordered apparel, his shaking hands.

"I am astonished," he said, bringing his critical gaze to a standstill upon the uneasy eyes of his son-in-law, "astonished, indeed I may say that I am not well pleased to see thee here this morning, my son. Thou hast the look of a man who should be within the walls of his sick chamber. The ministrations of my daughter\'s skilful hand will surely prove more acceptable to thee in thy present state than the deliberations of statecraft. I pray thee let me command for thee a litter."

"Hold!" said Caiaphas, grasping the old man by the arm. "Hear what I have to say to thee first," and he lowered his voice to a husky whisper. "Thy daughter is no longer my wife."

"What dost thou mean, man? Thou art mad!"

"Nay, I am not mad; would that I were!" said the other faintly.

"I repeat that thou art mad," cried Annas, his eyes blazing with a scornful fire. "What! my daughter repudiated by thee?"

"She hath become a follower of the Nazarene," said Caiaphas dully. "Could she longer be wife of mine?"

"Where is she?"

"She hath gone to them."

Annas was silent for a time. "If what thou sayest be no figment of a disordered brain," he said deliberately, "then I say thou hast done well. No longer wife of thine, she shall be no longer daughter of mine. She is henceforth one of the followers of him whom we hanged upon the accursed tree. As for them, shall I tell thee what shall shortly come to pass?"

The younger man made no reply.

"When men would plant grain in a field which hath been a wilderness," continued Annas, still in the same icy, deliberate tones, "they root up the tares and utterly destroy them with fire. This shall we do with these mischievous and deadly weeds that be winding their poisonous roots about the only props that remain to our suffering nation, the temple and the home. But let not this thing be spoken of--the matter of the woman, I mean. There is no need to make our name a byword and a hissing; she hath for the present gone to pay a visit; later we shall, perhaps, devise a way to secretly rid ourselves----"

"What!" cried Caiaphas, starting up. "Wouldst thou----?"

"Hist, man, the others are coming!--wilt thou remain? We shall this morning concern ourselves with this very matter."

"I will remain."

And when presently the council was convened, he took his old place upon the right hand of Annas. In his sick heart he wished for death, yet there burned within him the miserable desire to avenge himself upon them at whose door he laid the loss of both his wife and his son.

"Thou mayest fetch hither the two men whom ye put in hold," commanded Annas, "likewise the beggar."

"Ye behold in these," he continued, fixing his piercing gaze upon Peter and John, as they stood before the semicircle of their august judges, "two men who were prominent followers of the Nazarene, who was recently put to death because of his crimes against church and state. Wise men would have taken a wholesome warning from the fate of their false teacher, but these follow in the footsteps of him who was crucified, not remembering apparently that those footsteps led to the cross. Yesterday there was a tumult raised in the holy temple, a beggar whom God had justly afflicted because of the sins of his fathers was, forsooth, healed; healed by these men. It is not meet that such things be permitted. I therefore command that ye tell us straightway by what means and by what name ye have done this thing?"

"Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel," said Peter, and at the sound of his voice the beggar who had involuntarily shrunken back abashed stood boldly forth. "If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, and if ye will inquire by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus the Nazarene, the Messiah, whom ye crucified but whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."

Something of the same feeling which had overwhelmed Annas on the night when he had essayed to question the man of Nazareth came upon him. He tried to speak, and his voice failed him. Meantime a murmur of surprise ran about the circle.

"How is it," whispered one to his neighbor, "that these ignorant men can speak in such a manner?"

"They have learned it in the company of the Galilean," replied the other. "Dost thou not remember his s............