ant
of it when she set out. She was a deceitful, scheming little thing.
Angry with herself, she averted her gaze from the eyes that hungered for
her, though they were yet unlit by self-consciousness; she loosed her
hand from his, and as if the cessation of the contact restored her
self-respect, some of her anger passed unreasonably towards him.

"What right, have you to say it must not be?" she inquired haughtily.
"Do you think I can't take care of myself, that I need any one to
protect me or to help me?"

"No--I--I--only mean--" he stammered in infinite distress, feeling
himself somehow a blundering brute.

"Remember I am not like the girls you are used to meet. I have known the
worst that life can offer. I can stand alone, yes, and face the whole
world. Perhaps you don't know that I wrote _Mordecai Josephs_, the book
you burlesqued so mercilessly!"

"_You_ wrote it!"

"Yes, I. I am Edward Armitage. Did those initials never strike you? I
wrote it and I glory in it. Though all Jewry cry out 'The picture is
false,' I say it is true. So now you know the truth. Proclaim it to all
Hyde Park and Maida Vale, tell it to all your narrow-minded friends and
acquaintances, and let them turn and rend me. I can live without them or
their praise. Too long they have cramped my soul. Now at last I am going
to cut myself free. From them and from you and all your petty prejudices
and interests. Good-bye, for ever."

She went out abruptly, leaving the room dark and Raphael shaken and
dumbfounded; she went down the stairs and into the keen bright air, with
a fierce exultation at her heart, an intoxicating sense of freedom and
defiance. It was over. She had vindicated herself to herself and to the
imaginary critics. The last link that bound her to Jewry was snapped; it
was impossible it could ever be reforged. Raphael knew her in her true
colors at last. She seemed to herself a Spinoza the race had cast out.

The editor of _The Flag of Judah_ stood for some minutes as if
petrified; then he turned suddenly to the litter on his table and
rummaged among it feverishly. At last, as with a happy recollection, he
opened a drawer. What he sought was there. He started reading _Mordecai
Josephs_, forgetting to close the drawer. Passage after passage suffused
his eyes with tears; a soft magic hovered about the nervous sentences;
he read her eager little soul in every line. Now he understood. How
blind he had been! How could he have missed seei