He went home and said to his wife: "We will go to the Rabbi to-morrow, and tell him that we have an insurmountable dislike to each other, and he will at once give us a divorce on that account. The Christian has promised to marry you. Had that not been his intention before, it is now...." "Nathan!" she cried, throwing herself at his feet, and covering his hand with tears and kisses--"Nathan, how good you are!" "No," he answered, "I am not good. I am only doing what I consider to be my duty. I am atoning for a sin that was committed through no fault of mine. We were married without our feelings being consulted. That was a sin, and it is expiated now; for I love you, although perhaps I did not know it until yesterday, and you do not love me--but another. I can not doom you to misery; rather than do that, I suffer myself. This is the plain state of the case, and I claim no merit for what I am doing. What distresses me most is that you will leave our faith, and that I enable you to do so. I have prayed so earnestly to God for pardon, that I hope He will forgive me. He sees my heart, and He knows that I have no choice." * * * * * There is little more to tell. Nathan obtained a divorce in the course of a few days, and a few weeks after, Chane--now Christine--married Herr von Negrusz. There had not been such a scandal in the neighborhood for years. Curses and malevolence followed Chane to her new home; and even those who wished her well, shook their heads over the marriage. The reader already knows that the curses were fruitless, and the fears of the benevolent unfounded. That Chane lived, a happy wife and mother, in the same house, on the threshold of which Esther Freudenthal had died because she had loved a Christian. This time love had triumphed over creed. It seemed to work miracles: for not only did it overlap barriers, but in spite of the objectionable features of the case, and the dissimilarity of the husband and wife, theirs was a happy marriage. For theirs was true love, and true love is a mighty power, a divine gift, without which it is a sin against God and man to enter into any marriage. Christine von Negrusz has only one sorrow. It is not that Frau Emilie will hardly speak to her, or that the three elderly "Graces" look the other way when they chance to meet; nor is it the sardonic smile with which Herr von Bolwinski accompanies the words--"I was the first to notice it, ho, ho!" whenever he has the opportunity. None of these things distress her; but a real shadow lies upon her otherwise happy life. This is the wrath of her father, which will probably never cease until the lonely, disappointed old man finds peace in the grave. Nathan took great pains to save her this one sorrow, but he was not successful. He does not yet give up hope of a reconciliation, and every time he revisits Barnow, he tries to soften the old man's heart.