r
tenderly. He felt a violent spasm traversing her bosom.

"I can't, father," she cried in a choking voice. "I can't. Don't ask
me."

David leaned against the manuscript-littered table in stony silence. The
stern granite faces of the old continental Rabbis seemed to frown down
on him from the walls and he returned the frown with interest. His heart
was full of bitterness, contempt, revolt. What a pack of knavish bigots
they must all have been! Reb Shemuel bent down and took his daughter's
head in his trembling palms. The eyes were closed again, the chest
heaved painfully with silent sobs.

"Do you love him so much, Hannah?" whispered the old man.

Her sobs answered, growing loud at last.

"But you love your religion more, my child?" he murmured anxiously.
"That will bring you peace."

Her sobs gave him no assurance. Presently the contagion of sobbing took
him too.

"O God! God!" he moaned. "What sin have I committed; that thou shouldst
punish my child thus?"

"Don't blame God!" burst forth David at last. "It's your own foolish
bigotry. Is it not enough your daughter doesn't ask to marry a
Christian? Be thankful, old man, for that and put away all this
antiquated superstition. We're living in the nineteenth century."

"And what if we are!" said Reb Shemuel, blazing up in turn. "The Torah
is eternal. Thank God for your youth, and your health and strength, and
do not blaspheme Him because you cannot have all the desire of your
heart or the inclination of your eyes."

"The desire of my heart," retorted David. "Do you imagine I am only
thinking of my own suffering? Look at your daughter--think of what you
are doing to her and beware before it is too late."

"Is it in my hand to do or to forbear?" asked the old man, "It is the
Torah. Am I responsible for that?"

"Yes," said David, out of mere revolt. Then, seeking to justify himself,
his face lit up with sudden inspiration. "Who need ever know? The
_Maggid_ is dead. Old Hyams has gone to America. So Hannah has told me.
It's a thousand to one Leah's people never heard of the Law of
Leviticus. If they had, it's another thousand to one against their
putting two and two together. It requires a Talmudist like you to even
dream of reckoning Hannah as an ordinary divorced woman. If they did,
it's a third thousand to one against their telling anybody. There is no
need for you to perform the ceremony yourself. Let her be married by
some other minister--by the Chief Rab