ome purchases.
There was a cheery hum of life about the Ghetto; a pleasant festival
bustle; the air resounded with the raucous clucking of innumerable fowls
on their way to the feather-littered, blood-stained shambles, where
professional cut-throats wielded sacred knives; boys armed with little
braziers of glowing coal ran about the Ruins, offering halfpenny pyres
for the immolation of the last crumbs of leaven. Nobody paid the
slightest attention to the two tragic figures whose lives turned on the
brief moments of conversation snatched in the thick of the hurrying
crowd.

David's clouded face lightened a little as he saw Hannah advancing
towards him.

"I knew you would come," he said, taking her hand for a moment. His palm
burned, hers was cold and limp. The stress of a great tempest of emotion
had driven the blood from her face and limbs, but inwardly she was on
fire. As they looked each read revolt in the other's eyes.

"Let us walk on," he said.

They moved slowly forwards. The ground was slippery and muddy under
foot. The sky was gray. But the gayety of the crowds neutralized the
dull squalor of the scene.

"Well?" he said, in a low tone.

"I thought you had something to propose," she murmured.

"Let me carry your basket."

"No, no; go on. What have you determined?"

"Not to give you up, Hannah, while I live."

"Ah!" she said quietly. "I have thought it all over, too, and I shall
not leave you. But our marriage by Jewish law is impossible; we could
not marry at any synagogue without my father's knowledge; and he would
at once inform the authorities of the bar to our union."

"I know, dear. But let us go to America, where no one will know. There
we shall find plenty of Rabbis to marry us. There is nothing to tie me
to this country. I can start my business in America just as well as
here. Your parents, too, will think more kindly of you when you are
across the seas. Forgiveness is easier at a distance. What do you say,
dear?"

She shook her head.

"Why should we be married in a synagogue?" she asked.

"Why?" repeated he, puzzled.

"Yes, why?"

"Because we are Jews."

"You would use Jewish forms to outwit Jewish laws?" she asked quietly.

"No, no. Why should you put it that way? I don't doubt the Bible is all
right in making the laws it does. After the first heat of my anger was
over, I saw the whole thing in its proper bearings. Those laws about
priests were only intended for the days when we