givings had fallen away. The coming to Naomi of the gift of
speech had seemed to banish from his mind the dark spirit of the past.
He had no heart for reprisals upon the enemies who had sought to kill
him. Without that blind effort on their part, perhaps his great blessing
had not come to pass. Man's extremity had indeed been God's opportunity
and Ruth's vision was all but realised.

Ah, Ruth! Ruth! It had escaped Israel's notice until then that he had
been thinking of his dead wife the whole night through. When he put it
to himself so, he saw the reason of it at once. It was because there
was a sort of secret charm in the certainty that where she was she
must surely know that her dream was come true. There was also a kind
of bitter pathos in the regret that she was only an angel now and not a
woman; therefore she could not be with him to share his human joy.

As he walked through the Mellah, Israel thought of her again: how she
had sung by the cradle to her babe that could not hear. Sung? Yes, he
could almost fancy that he heard her singing yet. That voice so soft,
so clear even in its whispers--there had been nothing like it in all
the world. And her songs! Israel could also fancy that he heard her
favourite one. It was a song of love, a pure but passionate melody
wherein his own delicious happiness in the earlier days, before the
death of the old Grand Rabbi, had seemed to speak and sing.

Israel began to laugh at himself as he walked. To think that the warmth
and softness of the night, the sweet caressing night, the light and
beauty of the moon and the stillness and slumber of the town, could
betray an old fellow into forgotten dreams like these!

He had taken out of his pocket the big key of the clamped door to his
house, and was crossing the shadowed lane in front of it, when suddenly
he thought he heard music coating in the air above him. He stopped and
listened. Then he had no longer any doubt. It was music, it was singing;
he knew the song, and he knew the voice. The song was the song he had
been thinking of, and the voice was the voice of Ruth.

O where is Love?
Where, where is Love?
Is it of heavenly birth?
Is it a thing of earth?
Where, where is Love?

Israel felt himself rooted to the spot, and he stood some time without
stirring. He looked around. All else was still. The night was as silent
as death. He listened attentively. The singing seemed to come from his
own house. Th