In the following summer Lea knew that she was to become a mother for the third time. She felt oppressed by a foreboding that the same sorrow as before would come to her. She took every precaution, and Ruben watched over her anxiously and tenderly. But when the Day of Atonement came round, she insisted on spending the whole day in the synagogue fasting, in spite of her husband's remonstrances and the doctor's having forbidden her to do so. That was the cause of her destruction. The old synagogue was dreadfully close that day, and worse than close; it was filled with a most disagreeable and sickening odor of candles, and of an uncleanly congregation that had spent hours within its walls praying and weeping. It was an atmosphere in which the strongest person might have been overcome with faintness; so that its effects on a delicate woman in Lea's condition may be readily imagined. Her head began to swim, and, uttering a low cry, she fell from her prayer-stool in a swoon. The women quickly surrounded her, and tried to bring her to herself. They loosened her dress, and thrust two or three smelling-bottles under her nose at the same time. All at once they started back: a wild shriek from a hundred throats echoed through the building; it was followed by silence--the silence of dread.... Lea's _scheitel_ had become displaced, and her glorious hair, which had been confined within the _scheitel_, flowed over her shoulders, and crowned her pale beautiful face as with a golden halo. That was Lea's secret. The scene that followed can not be described; an idea of it can hardly be conveyed to a stranger. The stillness was broken by wild shouts of rage, curses, and struggling. Quick as lightning the news flew to the body of the synagogue, where the men were praying; and its effect was the same there as in the women's part. At first horror and astonishment produced an intense stillness; then the men seemed filled with an insane fury, and rushed into the women's "school." Had Lea just confessed that she had murdered her children--and the Jews regarded infanticide as the worst of crimes, as even more wicked than parricide--their wrath could not have been greater. But in the eyes of these ignorant, superstitious people, Lea's hair had borne silent witness that she was indeed guilty!...