and scorn upon me?"

"And what right have you to judge me? Of course I defend myself, and as
scornfully as you like, when I am despised and condemned by one who
knows as little of me as the first stranger I pass on the road. Cannot
you come forward with a face like a sister's, and leave my faults for
my own conscience? _You_ judge me! What do you, with your nun's
experiences, your heart chilled, your paltry view of the world through
a chapel window, know of a man whose passions boil in him like the fire
in yonder mountain? I should subdue my passions. Excellent text for a
copy book in a girls' school! I should be another man than I am; I
should remould myself; I should cool my brain with doctrine. With a
bullet, if you like; say that, and you will tell the truth. But with
the truth you have nothing to do; too long ago you were taught that you
must never face that. Do you deal as truthfully with yourself as I with
my own heart? I wonder, I wonder."

Miriam's eyes had fallen. She stood quite motionless, with a face of
suffering.

"You want me to confess my sins?" Reuben continued, walking about in
uncontrollable excitement. "What is your chapel formula? Find one
comprehensive enough, and let me repeat it after you; only mind that it
includes hypocrisy, for the sake of the confession. I tell you I am
conscious of no sins. Of follies, of ignorances, of miseries--as many
as you please. And to what account should they all go? Was I so
admirably guided in childhood and boyhood that my subsequent life is
not to be explained? It succeeded in your case, my poor sister. Oh,
nobly! Don't be afraid that I shall outrage you by saying all I think.
But just think of _me_ as a result of Jewish education applied to an
English lad, and one whose temperament was plain enough to eyes of
ordinary penetration. My very name! Your name, too! You it has made a
Jew in soul; upon me it weighs like a curse as often as I think of it.
It symbolizes all that is making my life a brutal failure--a failure--a
failure!"

He threw himself upon the couch and became silent, his strength at an
end, even his countenance exhausted of vitality, looking haggard and
almost ignoble. Miriam stirred at length, for the first time, and gazed
steadily at him.

"Reuben, let us have an end of this," she said, in a voice half choked.
"Stay or go as you will; but I shall utter no more reproaches. You must
make of your life what you can. As you say, I don't understand