If Burrell had possessed an atom of human feeling, he would have sunk abashed to the earth, and entreated the forgiveness of the Rabbi, whose flashing eyes and extended features glared and swelled with indignation; but the only two emotions that at the time contended within him were cowardice and pride. Had he the power, gladly would he have struck the Jew to death, as a punishment for what he deemed his insolence; but he feared the protecting and avenging hand of Cromwell, who never resigned a cherished purpose or a cherished person, and whose esteem for the learned Rabbi was perfectly known, and much talked of about the court. "You cannot avoid crediting me for meekness, Ben Israel," he said, without, however, raising his eyes from the ground (for his blood boiled in his veins, though he spoke in a gentle tone); "you have come into my house, rated me upon a foul charge, and will not permit me to speak in my own defence. Take a cup of this wine, and then I will hear, if you can adduce it, further proof than that false portrait." The Rabbi touched not the proffered beverage, but withdrew from his vest sundry letters, which he unfolded with a trembling hand: they were the communications he had received from the Polish Jew, with whose family at Paris his daughter had remained. He stated Burrell's extraordinary attention to Zillah, during his residence abroad--the frequent letters that passed between them under pretence of a correspondence with her father--her having received others from England since Burrell's return--her total change of manner--and, finally, her having quitted his house, and his being unable to discover where she had gone. Strong suspicions were added that she had followed Burrell to, and was now in, England; and there was a long and formal expression of regret from the Polish Jew that he had ever admitted the Christian beyond the threshold of his door.