the dog-cart, and the Rabbi saying, "God be with you,
George, and as your father's father received me in the day of my sore
discouragement, so may the Lord God of Israel open a door for you in
every land whithersoever you go, and bring you in at last through the
gates into the city." The Rabbi watched George till the dog-cart faded
away into the dusk of the winter's day, and they had settled for the
night in their places among the books before the Rabbi spoke.

It was with a wistful tenderness that he turned to Carmichael and
touched him slightly with his hand, as was a fashion with the Rabbi.

"You will not think me indifferent to your welfare because I have not
inquired about your affairs, for indeed this could not be, but the
going forth of this lad has tried my heart. Is there aught, John, that
it becometh you to tell me, and wherein my years can be of any avail?"

"It is not about doctrine I wished to speak to you, Rabbi, although I
am troubled thus also, but about . . . you remember our talk."

"About the maid--surely; I cannot forget her, and indeed often think of
her since the day you brought me to her house and made me known unto
her, which was much courtesy to one who is fitter for a book-room than
a woman's company.

"She is fair of face and hath a pleasant manner, and surely beauty and
a winsome way are from God; there seemed also a certain contempt of
baseness and a strength of will which are excellent. Perhaps my
judgment is not even because Miss Carnegie was gracious to me, and you
know, John, it is not in me to resist kindness, but this is how she
seems to me. Has there been trouble between you?"

"Do not misunderstand me, Rabbi; I have not spoken one word of love to
. . . Miss Carnegie, nor she to me; but I love her, and I thought that
perhaps she saw that I loved her. But now it looks as if . . . what I
hoped is never to be"; and Carmichael told how Kate had risen and left
the Church in hot wrath because he had compared Queen Mary to Jezebel.

"Is it not marvellous," mused the Rabbi, looking into the fire, "how
one woman, who was indeed at the time little more than a girl, did
carry men, many of them wise and clever, away as with a flood, and
still divideth scholars and even . . . friends?

"It was not fitting that Miss Carnegie should have left God's house in
heat of temper, and it seemeth to us that she hath a wrong reading of
history, but it is surely good that she hath her convictions,