"'Be faithful,' he would say, 'be faithful to Judaism. A great destiny awaits thee. For lo! our long persecution draws to an end, the days of the Messiah are at hand, and thou shalt be the Messiah's bride,' And the glory of a great hope came into my life, and I longed to escape from my prison into the sunlit world. I, the bride of the cloister!" she cried, and revolt flung roses into her white face. "Nay, the bride of the Messiah am I, who shall restore joy to the earth, who shall wipe the tears from off all faces. Last night my father came to me again, and said, 'Be faithful to Judaism.' Then I replied, 'If thou wert of a truth my father, thou wouldst cease thy exhortations, thou wouldst know I would rather die than renounce my faith, thou wouldst rescue me from these hated walls, and give me unto my Bridegroom.' Thereupon he said, 'Stretch out thine hand,' and I stretched out my hand, and I felt an invisible hand clasp it, and when I awoke I found myself by his grave-side, where ye came upon me. Oh, take me to the Woman's Bath forthwith, I pray ye, that I may wash off the years of pollution." They took her to the Woman's Bath, admiring her marvellous beauty. "Where is the Messiah?" she asked. "He is not come yet," they made answer, for the rising up of Sabbataï was as yet known to but a few disciples. "Then I will go find Him," she answered. She wandered to Amsterdam--the capital of Jewry--and thence to Frankfort-on-the-Main, and thence, southwards, in vain search to Livorne. And there in the glory of the Italian sunshine, her ardent, unbalanced nature, starved in the chilly convent, yielded to passion, for there were many to love her. But to none would she give herself in marriage. "I am the Messiah's destined bride," she said, and her wild eyes had always an air of waiting. XII And in the course of years the news of her and of her prophecy travelled to Sabbataï Zevi, and found him at Cairo the morning after he had spoken to the Sphinx in the great silences. And to him under the blue Egyptian sky came an answering throb of romance. The womanhood that had not moved him in the flesh thrilled him, vaguely imaged from afar, mystically, spiritually. "Let her be sent for," he said, and his disciples noted an unwonted restlessness in the weary weeks while his ambassadors were away. "Dost think she will come?" he said once to Abraham Rubio. "What woman would not come to thee?" replied the beggar. "What dainty is not offered thee? I trow natheless that thou wilt refuse, and that I shall come in for thy leavings." Sabbataï smiled faintly. "What have I to do with women?" he murmured. "But I would fain know what hath been prophetically revealed to her!"