as Saturday morning, and though the broader thoroughfares of the
East End were crowded and the narrower streets full of life, the Jew's
house was silent, for it was the Jewish Sabbath.

As I went hurriedly upstairs I heard the Jew himself, who was dressing
for the synagogue, singing his Sabbath hymn: _Lerho daudee likras
kollo_--"Come, O friend, let us go forth to meet the Bride, let us
receive the Sabbath with joy!"

Then came a shock.

When I reached my room I found, to my dismay, that the pile of vests
which I had left on my bed on going out the day before had been removed;
and just as I was telling myself that no one else except Mrs.
Abramovitch had a key to my door I heard shuffling footsteps on the
stair, and knew that her husband was coming up to me.

A moment afterwards the Jew stood in my doorway. He was dressed in his
Sabbath suit and, free from the incongruous indications of his homely
calling, the patriarchal appearance which had first struck me was even
more marked than before. His face was pale, his expression was severe,
and if his tongue betrayed the broken English of the Polish Jew, I, in
my confusion and fear, did not notice it then.

My first thought was that he had come to reprove me for neglecting my
work, and I was prepared to promise to make up for my absence. But at a
second glance I saw that something had happened, something had become
known, and that he was there to condemn and denounce me.

"You have been out all night," he said. "Can you tell me where you have
been?"

I knew I could not, and though it flashed upon me to say that I had
slept at the house of a friend, I saw that, if he asked who my friend
was, and what, I should be speechless.

The Jew waited for my reply and then said:

"You have given us a name--can you say it is your true and right one?"

Again I made no answer, and after another moment the Jew said:

"Can you deny that you have a child whom you have hidden from our
knowledge?"

I felt myself gasping, but still I did not speak.

"Can you say that it was lawfully born according to your Christian
marriage?"

I felt the colour flushing into my face but I was still silent; and
after a moment in which, as I could see, the stern-natured Jew was
summing me up as a woman of double life and evil character, he said:

"Then it is true? . . . Very well, you will understand that from this
day you cease to be in my service."

All this time my eyes were down, but I was