t was gone. The terribly earnest appeal had been in vain. Not a trace
of that short vision of love remained impressed upon his brain.

With a smothered cry of agony Unorna leaned against the great slab of
stone behind her and covered her eyes. The darkness of night descended
upon her, and with it the fire of a burning shame.

Then a loud and cruel laugh rang through the chilly air, such a laugh as
the devils in hell bestow upon the shame of a proud soul that knows
its own infinite bitterness. Unorna started and uncovered her eyes, her
suffering changed in a single instant to ungovernable and destroying
anger. She made a step forwards and then stopped short, breathing hard.
The Wanderer, too, had turned, more quickly than she. Between two tall
gravestones, not a dozen paces away, stood a man with haggard face and
eyes on fire, his keen, worn features contorted by a smile in which
unspeakable satisfaction struggled for expression with a profound
despair.

The man was Israel Kafka.

CHAPTER XIV

The Wanderer looked from Unorna to Kafka with profound surprise. He had
never seen the man and had no means of knowing who he was, still less of
guessing what had brought him to the lonely place, or why he had broken
into a laugh, of which the harsh, wild tones still echoed through the
wide cemetery. Totally unconscious of all that had happened to himself
during the preceding quarter of an hour, the Wanderer was deprived of
the key to the situation. He only understood that the stranger was for
some reason or other deeply incensed against Unorna, and he realised
that the intruder had, on the moment of appearance, no control over
himself.

Israel Kafka remained where he stood, between the two tall stones, one
hand resting on each, his body inclined a little forward, his dark,
sunken eyes, bloodshot and full of a turbid, angry brightness, bent
intently upon Unorna's face. He looked as though he were about to move
suddenly forwards, but it was impossible to foresee that he might not
as suddenly retreat, as a lean and hungry tiger crouches for a moment in
uncertainty whether to fight or fly, when after tracking down his man
he finds him not alone and defenceless as he had anticipated, but
well-armed and in company.

The Wanderer's indolence was only mental, and was moreover transitory
and artificial. When he saw Unorna advance, he quickly placed himself
between her and Israel Kafka, and looked from one to the other.

"Who