"No. But when one lives with her, and hears her sigh! Thank God, you have not succeeded. Yet I should like to have another thread to bind her to earth. Her heart bleeds over Raphael's anger. If they could only be reconciled! It is true the thread of persecution would then be loosened," and the old woman gesticulated as if the network of threads were really there. "Yet not completely. I know our people too well. Doctor, because you have a good heart, and she is so miserable, will you not speak to Raphael?" "It will be useless," he said, and yet he gave his promise. When he was with Raphael, and beheld the stern face of a morose man of mature years, instead of the bright look of a young man of twenty-three, his heart failed, and he had only hinted at his errand when he arose. "Dr. Reiser," said a cool, collected voice. "That name must never be mentioned in my house. A few days ago the elders of the congregation called to ask me to see that the boy was received into the covenant of Israel. To them I made answer that I had no right or duty in the matter. And yet a sacred question was therein involved." "No holier than that which brought me here. If you listened to the elders, you should listen to me also." He then talked of Judith plainly and to the point, as was his wont; and he thought to himself, no heart could be so hard as to listen unmoved. Raphael gave no sign of impatience, but when he turned his face to the doctor, the latter knew he had spoken in vain. It was the face of one who had forgotten to be merciful. "You have told me nothing new. It is a hard fate, which you say is undeserved. I say it is deserved. For my part, I will neither add to nor take away from its misery. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord. For me, she is dead. You say she made no sacrifice of her honor, that she was tricked out of it. Let her accuse her betrayer. It is enough for me to know the well-guarded child of the best of fathers is a lost woman--the first of her faith in this town for centuries. She will not become a Christian? There is no merit in that. It is her duty, and her repentance cannot recall my father to life or wash the stain from our name." "Herr Trachtenberg, this is exceptional severity." "Perhaps not as exceptional," and here there was a break in his voice for the first time, "as my former love for her." At the door the doctor found the count's carriage. The count was with the magistrate Groze, Fedko said. Had he been asked to call? the doctor queried; and then he had time to think again of Miriam's curious words. He did not believe in them, and yet they depressed him. The thread could not be tied; it had been cut for all time. On his return home that afternoon from a round of visits, Dr. Reiser was informed that Count Baranowski and old Miriam had called, and that the latter had begged to know when he returned. "Go and tell her!" was the order.