He was sure that his son would welcome him with great joy. They would go out to the hill country together. He would have great things to tell his son, while his son would instruct him in the things of the law, the things one must know to be saved. The world shone wondrously that day. Secretly in the stormy rains the leaves had been glossing themselves, the long boughs of the plane trees had clothed themselves with mottled velvet in the blue darkness, the hillsides had gathered acres upon acres of rich purple iris bloom and glowing woof of tulips and anemones. All forms and colors stood out sharply in this clear sunlight; the backs of the red cattle in the sun, an old spear point glittering in the grass by the winding brook, and Hermon gleaming in his snows. Myriads of butterflies flecked the blossoming fields amid the wide humming of bees, and everywhere--everywhere--the larks sang, in silver unison with the joy of Obil. That day faded into dusk before Obil came to the home of the Rabbi Elkanah in its wilderness of grove and garden. In darkness came Obil to that well-remembered gateway. But what meant this? No lantern gleamed here from rose-wreathed pillar. No sound of any lute floated out from perfumed bowers. Only a lone beggar started up from dank shadows. Obil’s hand shivered as he dropped a gift into the beseeching palm and inquired of the rabbi and his house. “Dost thou know?” came the quick, answering question, whispered with hot breath close in the ear of Obil. “Gone--gone! Some say dwelling in Jerusalem, some that he is gone to Capernaum. For he hates this house. Here died the lady Sarah, his wife. Here lived and died his son, the leper, hidden from the world. “And”--here the beggar’s face again touched hotly the face of Obil--“didst thou know Obil, the Desert-lover, and Keeper of Camels for Abdul’s Caravan? His wife Miriam was niece to the great rabbi. It was the son of Obil and Miriam they took with deceit and hid away deep, deep in the inner courts of the palace here, to be companion of their son, the leper. “_Art thou Obil?_ Go, go! Let them tell thee these things in Hebron! Let them tell thee how thy son, the slave, caught the poison at last, how they thrust him forth into the highways, blind, to beg with the leper herd! There they will tell thee how one black night he wandered over yonder broken aqueduct wall and fell to the stones below, to lie dead and forgotten,--a Thing not to be touched or known! Go!” In Hebron they told him all, in much trembling and fear. This it was that changed the heart of Obil. Serve a God who only lived to Curse, and whose honored servants were like this? Never Obil. He would curse Jehovah, kill, and die.