ou to be my wife,' and
I said, 'I take you to be my husband,' then we likewise swore that we
would live truly and confidentially with one another, and have no secrets
from each other. Gabriel, fulfill now your oath. I demand it of you, by
the memory of that hour, by my love for you, by our child. Gabriel, what
have you done?"

"I can not tell it, and you may not hear it, Rebecca. For, once uttered,
that word will be a two-edged sword, and plunge us both in misery and
shame!"

"Shame! There is no shame for the Jewess! Misery! Tell me a form of misery
which I have not suffered and endured from childhood up! My mother was
stabbed in Venice by a nobleman because she would not break her faith with
my father and desert him. My father was known as a sorcerer and vender of
poisons. The noblemen used secretly to resort by night to our wretched
house upon the Ghetto, and paid him great sums for his drugs, but if he
showed himself upon the streets by day, the populace hooted and cast
stones after him. And when they saw me, they hissed and mocked, bestowing
opprobrious epithets upon me, and even went out of the way to avoid the
contamination of my touch, for I was the daughter of a poisoner, a secret
bravo--I was a Jewess! But when I was grown, then the young noblemen came
to my father, not merely for the sake of his drugs and medicines, but
also--hush! Not a breath of it! You were my deliverer--my savior! You
rescued me from all distress; you were to me as the Messiah, in whom my
people have hoped for a thousand years. I followed you, and I shall go
with you my whole life long--go with you to the scaffold, if needs be. I
know it, Gabriel, I read it in your countenance; you have committed a
crime!"

"A crime! A fearful crime!" said he, shuddering. "Turn your head away,
Rebecca, I am not worthy that you should look upon me!"

"I do look upon you, Gabriel, I condemn you not. I am thinking of what we
said to one another in the count's picture gallery. I called to you to
rescue me at any price. I told you that if I could purchase deliverance
thereby, I was ready to commit a crime. That to be with you again I would
abjure the faith of my fathers, although I knew I should die of penitence
after the perpetration of such a crime."

"And I replied to you, Rebecca, that I, too, was ready to perpetrate a
crime for the sake of rescuing you and calling you my own again, and that
I would not die of penitence."

"And yet you do repent, Gab