Twilight filled the wards. The white beds looked ghostly in the darkness. The last visitor departed. Sarah’s husband had not yet come. “He is not well, Mrs. Kretznow,” Sister Margaret ventured to say in her best Yiddish. “Or he is busy working. Work is not so slack any more.” Alone in the institution she shared Sarah’s ignorance of the Kretznow scandal. Talk of it died before her youth and sweetness. “He would have written,” said Sarah, sternly. “He is wearied of me. I have lain here a year. Job’s curse is on me.” “Shall I to him,” Sister Margaret paused to excogitate the word, “write?” “No. He hears me knocking at his heart.” They had flashes of strange savage poetry, these crude yet complex souls. Sister Margaret, who was still liable to be startled, murmured feebly, “But----” “Leave me in peace!” with a cry like that of a wounded animal. The matron gently touched the novice’s arm, and drew her away. “I will write to him,” she whispered. Night fell, but sleep fell only for some. Sarah Kretznow tossed in a hell of loneliness. Ah, surely her husband had not forgotten her; surely she would not lie thus till death--that far-off death her strong religious instinct would forbid her hastening! She had gone into the Refuge to save him the constant sight of her helplessness and the cost of her keep. Was she now to be cut off forever from the sight of his strength? The next day he came by special invitation. His face was sallow, rimmed with swarthy hair; his under lip was sensuous. He hung his head, half veiling the shifty eyes. Sister Margaret ran to tell his wife. Sarah’s face sparkled. “Put up the screen!” she murmured, and in its shelter drew her husband’s head to her bosom and pressed her lips to his hair. But he, surprised into indiscretion, murmured: “I thought thou wast dying.” A beautiful light came into the gray eyes. “Thy heart told thee right, Herzel, my life, I was dying for a sight of thee.” “But the matron wrote to me pressingly,” he blurted out. He felt her breast heave convulsively under his face; with her hands she thrust him away. “God’s fool that I am--I should have known; to-day is not visiting day. They have compassion on me--they see my sorrows--it is public talk.” His pulse seemed to stop. “They have talked to thee of me,” he faltered. “I did not ask their pity. But they saw how I suffered--one cannot hide one’s heart.” “They have no right to talk,” he muttered, in sulky trepidation. “They have every right,” she rejoined, sharply. “If thou hadst come to see me even once--why hast thou not?” “I--I--have been travelling in the country with cheap jewelry. The tailoring is so slack.” “Look me in the eyes! The law of Moses? No; it is a lie. God shall forgive thee. Why hast thou not come?” “I have told thee.”