"You remember that marriage. I am not a poet, nor do I find it easy to put my impressions into words, therefore I simply can not tell you what effect seeing that girl had upon me, for it was unspeakable, indescribable. Still, although her dear face was continually before me in imagination, I could not make up my mind to visit her in her father's house, for that house was haunted by the ghosts of my miserable childhood--ghosts I dared not waken without pressing necessity. Besides that, Hirsch Welt is one of the most narrow-minded of the pious sect in the community, and I felt no desire to receive any more proofs of the affection of that lot than I have already had. "So I left our next meeting to be brought about by chance; and, as chance would have it, I met Rachel again before another week had passed. It was in a curious place--the very last that I should have thought of. "You know the old ruined castle on the left bank of the Lered; you know it better than I do. I never had any liking for the place, for a love of romantic scenery has no part in my composition; but somehow or other I was that day impelled to climb the hillock on which the ruins lie, after having wandered aimlessly about the heath for hours. I felt--laugh at me if you like--that I must go to the top of some eminence and get a good view of the country round. "Well, as I said before, I climbed the little hill, and there I found Rachel sitting on a stone in the ruined court, right under the great red wooden cross, the presence of which makes the Jews so averse to visiting the place. She was sewing diligently, and a book was lying on the grass at her side. "On hearing the sound of my footsteps, she looked up, and returned my greeting quietly. "'Here you are at last,' she said. "I stared at her in astonishment. 'Did you know that I was coming? I only came up here by chance.' "'No one told me that you were coming,' she answered, blushing deeply as she spoke, 'but I was quite sure that you would come. Yes; I brought that book to show you.' She put it in my hand. 'Do you remember it?' "I remembered it well. A strange feeling came over me as I gazed at the dog's-eared discolored pages. It was a prayer-book, written in Jewish-German for the use of women, and was one of the few things that I had inherited from my mother. In spite of all my hardness, I was profoundly moved--I scarcely knew why. "My eyes were dim, and I returned the book in silence. "'You gave it to me,' she said, 'when you went away out into the wide world to seek your fortune on that beautiful summer morning long ago. We cried a great deal when you left us, fair-haired Chaim and I. It is to him that I am engaged, you know....' "'To him!' I repeated, as calmly as I could. 'You said nothing about your engagement the other evening.'