thou shalt come out to me and we will live
happily together and our children shall live happily here."

But Beenah burst into fresh tears.

"Woe! Woe!" she sobbed. "How wilt thou, an old man, face the sea and the
strange faces all alone? See how sorely thou art racked with rheumatism.
How canst thou go glaziering? Thou liest often groaning all the night.
How shalt thou carry the heavy crate on thy shoulders?"

"God will give me strength to do what is right." The tears were plain
enough in his voice now and would not be denied. His words forced
themselves out in a husky wheeze.

Beenah threw her arms round his neck. "No! No!" she cried hysterically.
"Thou shalt not go! Thou shalt not leave me!"

"I must go," his parched lips articulated. He could not see that the
snow of her hair had drifted into her eyes and was scarce whiter than
her cheeks. His spectacles were a blur of mist.

"No, no," she moaned incoherently. "I shall die soon. God is merciful.
Wait a little, wait a little. He will kill us both soon. My poor lamb,
my poor Daniel! Thou shalt not leave me."

The old man unlaced her arms from his neck.

"I must. I have heard God's word in the silence."

"Then I will go with thee. Wherever thou goest I will go."

"No, no; thou shall not face the first hardships, I will front them
alone; I am strong, I am a man."

"And thou hast the heart to leave me?" She looked piteously into his
face, but hers was still hidden from him in the mist. But through the
darkness the flash passed again. His hand groped for her waist, he drew
her again towards him and put the arms he had unlaced round his neck and
stooped his wet cheek to hers. The past was a void, the forty years of
joint housekeeping, since the morning each had seen a strange face on
the pillow, faded to a point. For fifteen years they had been drifting
towards each other, drifting nearer, nearer in dual loneliness; driven
together by common suffering and growing alienation from the children
they had begotten in common; drifting nearer, nearer in silence, almost
in unconsciousness. And now they had met. The supreme moment of their
lives had come. The silence of forty years was broken. His withered lips
sought hers and love flooded their souls at last.

When the first delicious instants were over, Mendel drew a chair to the
table and wrote a letter in Hebrew script and posted it and Beenah
picked up Miriam's jacket. The crackling flames had subsided to a steady