ng a great man; he and the new
Strelitski were of one breed to her.

"He will make Jews no happier and Christians no wiser," she said
sceptically. "The great populations will sweep on, as little affected by
the Jews as this crowd by you and me. The world will not go back on
itself--rather will Christianity transform itself and take the credit.
We are such a handful of outsiders. Judaism--old or new--is a forlorn
hope."

"The forlorn hope will yet save the world," he answered quietly, "but it
has first to be saved to the world."

"Be happy in your hope," she said gently. "Good-bye." She held out her
little hand. He had no option but to take it.

"But we are not going to part like this," he said desperately. "I shall
see you again before you go to America?"

"No, why should you?"

"Because I love you," rose to his lips. But the avowal seemed too plump.
He prevaricated by retorting, "Why should I not?"

"Because I fear you," was in her heart, but nothing rose to her lips. He
looked into her eyes to read an answer there, but she dropped them. He
saw his opportunity.

"Why should I not?" he repeated.

"Your time is valuable," she said faintly.

"I could not spend it better than with you," he answered boldly.

"Please don't insist," she said in distress.

"But I shall; I am your friend. So far as I know, you are lonely. If you
are bent upon going away, why deny me the pleasure of the society I am
about to lose for ever?"

"Oh, how can you call it a pleasure--such poor melancholy company as I
am!"

"Such poor melancholy company that I came expressly to seek it, for some
one told me you were at the Museum. Such poor melancholy company that if
I am robbed of it life will be a blank."

He had not let go her hand; his tones were low and passionate; the
heedless traffic of the sultry London street was all about them.

Esther trembled from head to foot; she could not look at him. There was
no mistaking his meaning now; her breast was a whirl of delicious pain.

But in proportion as the happiness at her beck and call dazzled her, so
she recoiled from it. Bent on self-effacement, attuned to the peace of
despair, she almost resented the solicitation to be happy; she had
suffered so much that she had grown to think suffering her natural
element, out of which she could not breathe; she was almost in love with
misery. And in so sad a world was there not something ignoble about
happiness, a selfish aloofness from the