They moved slowly forwards. The ground was slippery and muddy under foot. The sky was gray. But the gayety of the crowds neutralized the dull squalor of the scene. "Well?" he said, in a low tone. "I thought you had something to propose," she murmured. "Let me carry your basket." "No, no; go on. What have you determined?" "Not to give you up, Hannah, while I live." "Ah!" she said quietly. "I have thought it all over, too, and I shall not leave you. But our marriage by Jewish law is impossible; we could not marry at any synagogue without my father's knowledge; and he would at once inform the authorities of the bar to our union." "I know, dear. But let us go to America, where no one will know. There we shall find plenty of Rabbis to marry us. There is nothing to tie me to this country. I can start my business in America just as well as here. Your parents, too, will think more kindly of you when you are across the seas. Forgiveness is easier at a distance. What do you say, dear?" She shook her head. "Why should we be married in a synagogue?" she asked. "Why?" repeated he, puzzled. "Yes, why?" "Because we are Jews." "You would use Jewish forms to outwit Jewish laws?" she asked quietly. "No, no. Why should you put it that way? I don't doubt the Bible is all right in making the laws it does. After the first heat of my anger was over, I saw the whole thing in its proper bearings. Those laws about priests were only intended for the days when we had a Temple, and in any case they cannot apply to a merely farcical divorce like yours. It is these old fools,--I beg your pardon,--it is these fanatical Rabbis who insist on giving them a rigidity God never meant them to have, just as they still make a fuss about _kosher_ meat. In America they are less strict; besides, they will not know I am a _Cohen_." "No. David," said Hannah firmly. "There must be no more deceit. What need have we to seek the sanction of any Rabbi? If Jewish law cannot marry us without our hiding something, then I will have nothing to do with Jewish law. You know my opinions: I haven't gone so deeply into religious questions as you have--" "Don't be sarcastic," he interrupted. "I have always been sick to death of this eternal ceremony, this endless coil of laws winding round us and cramping our lives at every turn; and now it has become too oppressive to be borne any longer. Why should we let it ruin our lives? And why, if we determine to break from it, shall we pretend to keep to it? What do you care for Judaism? You eat _triphas_, you smoke on _Shabbos_ when you want to--"