for Delecresse--I think
he would stab me if he knew."

"What sort of thoughts are they?"

"Wilt thou keep my secret, if I tell thee?"

"Indeed, I will not utter them without thy leave." Belasez cut off her
silk, laid down the armilaus, and clasped both hands round her knee.

"When your great festivals draw nigh," she said, "four times in every
year, we Israelites are driven into your churches, and forced to listen
to a discourse from one of your priests. Until that day, I have never
paid any attention to what I deemed blasphemy. I have listened for a
moment, but at the first word of error, or the first repetition of one
of your sacred names, I have always stopped my ears, and heard no more.
But this last Midsummer, when we were driven into Lincoln Cathedral, the
new Bishop was in the pulpit. And he spake not like the other priests.
I could not stop my ears. Why should I, when he read the words of one
of our own prophets, and in the holy tongue, rendering it into French as
he went on? And Delecresse said it was correctly translated, for I
asked him afterwards. He saw nothing in it different from usual. But
it was terrible to me! He read words that I never knew were in our
Scriptures--concerning One whom it seemed to me must be--_must_ be, He
whom you call Messiah. `As a root out of a dry ground'--`no form nor
comeliness'--`no beauty that we should desire Him,'--`despised and
rejected of men'--and lastly, `we hid our faces from Him.' For we did,
Doucebelle,--we did! I could think of nothing else for a while. For we
did not hide them from others. We welcomed Judas of Galilee, and
Barchocheba, and many another who rose up in our midst, claiming to be
sent of God. But He, who claimed to be The Sent One,--we crucified Him.
We did not crucify them. We hid our faces from Him, and from Him
alone. And then I heard more words, for the Bishop kept reading on.
`We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own
way'--ah, was that not true of the dispersed of Judah?--`and the Lord
hath made to meet upon Him the iniquities of us all.' Doucebelle, it
was like carrying a lamp into a dark chamber, and beholding every thing
in it suddenly illuminated. Was that what it all meant? Was the Bishop
right, when he said afterwards, that it was not possible that the blood
of bulls and goats could take away sin? Were they all not realities, as
I had always thought them, but shadows, pointing forward th