As Naomi finished speaking, she laid her hand on her brother's arm, and looked into his countenance with a look of moving entreaty; her mother, with Judith, Claudia, and Mary, had gathered round her, and with eloquent gestures joined their supplications to hers. But Javan turned on her a look of scorn, and shaking off her gentle hand, he exclaimed, "Well may you plead for the life and liberty of an apostate!--for the same blasphemous creed that has marked him for eternal shame has branded you also! I know it all, Naomi. Your guilt, your hypocrisy, are all revealed. And here, in the presence of your parents, I denounce you as a Nazarene. Nay, cling not to me, and look not so imploringly,"--and Javan turned away his face that he might not meet his sister's sweet and tearful eyes,--"I am not going to give you up to the arm of justice. Cruel as I know you think me, I will not give your body to be mangled by the executioner. For our parents' sake I spare you this; and because I believe the power of the Lord God will yet be sent to cast forth the evil spirit that now possesses you, and make you again what once you were. But till that time arrives I renounce you as a sister; and I leave it to your father, to the just, the righteous Zadok, to take such steps as may speedily wipe away this stain, and remove the pollution from our house!" Javan looked with astonishment at Zadok and Salome. He expected to have seen surprise and horror depicted in their countenances at the disclosure which he had just made; but sorrow mingled with pity was the only emotion they betrayed. Naomi was about to reply to her brother, but Zadok interrupted her. "Javan," he said, in a tone of calm authority, "the error into which your sister has unhappily fallen, has long been known both to your mother and me. It has been the source of profound grief to us; and many have been the prayers which we have offered up before the throne of the Almighty that he would vouchsafe to restore her to the true faith. Hitherto, alas! no answer has been given, and her soul is still in darkness. Why should we have told our sorrow and our shame to you, my son! We knew your zeal for the Lord, and we knew the anguish it would give you to find that Naomi, your only sister, had been beguiled from the way of holiness and truth to follow this new and most accursed heresy. Therefore we have concealed it from you and from the world; and, Javan, as your father, I now command you to follow the same course. Use all your efforts, all your prayers to bring her back; but breathe not her disgrace in any human ear. I would not have her despised; and, oh! for worlds I would not have her fall into the power of my zealous, but hard-hearted brethren. She is my child, my most beloved daughter; and though my heart condemns her, yet there she shall find a refuge, even though all the powers of earth and hell were combined together to tear her from me!"