?"

Here the doctor interrupted the old woman's torrent of speech with
a stern "enough!" but she would not allow herself to be checked, and
continued with increasing volubility.

"Enough, you say? I fret over perversity enough in silence. May my
tongue wither, if I remain mute to-day. Good God! child, are you out of
your senses? Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to
be sure it isn't written in the books, that when people find out what
happened in Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a
Christian girl...."

At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant's
shoulder, and said with grave, quiet earnestness.

"Whoever speaks of that, may betray it; may betray it. Do you understand
me, Rahel? I know your good intentions, and therefore tell you: my
wife is content here, and danger is still far away. We shall stay. And
besides: since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an accursed,
the Christians as a condemned man. The former close the doors,
the latter would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean. No
Portuguese will come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one
monk and one Jew from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find
Elizabeth with me, it will involve no less trifle than her life and
mine. I shall stay here; you now know why, and can go to your kitchen."

Old Rahel reluctantly obeyed, yet the doctor did not resume his seat at
the writing-table, but for a long time paced up and down among his books
more rapidly than usual.

CHAPTER VI.

St. John's day was close at hand. Ulrich was to go to the monastery the
following morning. Hitherto Father Benedict had been satisfied, and no
one molested the doctor. Yet the tranquillity, which formerly exerted
so beneficial an effect, had departed, and the measures of precaution he
now felt compelled to adopt, like everything else that brought him into
connection with the world, interrupted the progress of his work.

The smith was obliged to provide Ulrich with clothing, and for this
purpose went with the lad and a well-filled purse, not to his native
place, but to the nearest large city.

There many a handsome suit of garments hung in the draper's windows, and
the barefooted boy blushed crimson with delight, when he stood before
this splendid show. As he was left free to choose, he instantly selected
the clothes a nobleman had ordered for his son, and which, from head
to foot, were bl