"'This isn't an inn,' answered Samuel, shortly, at the same time shutting the window. "'Poor thing,' said Lea, 'ought we to send her away?' "'We're living in dangerous times,' replied Samuel; 'I don't like to admit a stranger into my house.' "'But this poor creature is ill and weak,' said Lea. "And as the old woman outside continued to make an appeal to his pity, Samuel gave way and let her in. The maid-servants were all in bed and asleep, so Lea took her guest to a garret-room, and, after providing her with food and wine, wished her good-night, and left her. "Next morning the stranger took leave of her hostess very early, and with many expressions of gratitude. Lea was so busy all day making the final preparations for the feast, that she had not time to visit the room that had been occupied by the old woman until late in the afternoon, when she was making a last round of the house to see that no leavened bread was anywhere to be found. The room was perfectly neat and tidy, but she was astonished to find it pervaded by a most disagreeable smell. She opened the window, but that had no effect. She hunted about for the cause of the horrible odor. At length, on looking under the bed, she saw what made her blood run cold and her hair stand on end with terror. For under the bed there lay the naked corpse of a half-starved little child, with great wounds in its neck and chest. Lea at once understood what had happened, and struggled hard against the faintness that threatened to overpower her. The old woman had brought the corpse to the house, and had concealed it there, in order that the hideous old story might be revived that the Jews were in the habit of killing Christian children before the feast of the Passover; and terrible would be the vengeance taken by the Christians of the neighborhood. Lea recognized the full horrors of her position, and remembered the Graf's warning to her husband. She was nearly overwhelmed with the weight of her misery. For was it not she, and she alone, who, by inducing her husband to admit the woman into the house, had brought all the sorrow, persecution, and death that would surely come upon her home and upon the whole Jewish community? While she sat there shivering with fever and anguish, she heard wild cries, shrieks, and the sound of weeping in the street, and also the clank of swords. 'They are coming,' she muttered, and at the same moment a thought flashed into her mind, far more strange and horrible than a woman's brain had ever before conceived, and yet so noble and self-sacrificing that a woman alone could have entertained it. 'It was my fault,' she said to herself, 'and I alone must bear the consequences.' She rose to her feet, pressed her lips firmly together, and after a struggle regained her composure. Then taking up the child's corpse, she wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it on her knee.