t but return my love!" he faltered with dry throat.
"But no! that were too much for a man of my years to hope. But whisper
at least, that I am not repugnant to thee."

She was about to reply, when he dropped her hand and stayed her with a
gesture as abrupt as his avowal.

"Nay, answer me not. Not till I have told thee what honor forbids I
should withhold."

And he told the story of his ban and his long loneliness, her face
flashing 'twixt terror and pity.

"Answer me, now," he said, almost sternly. "Couldst thou love such a
man, proscribed by his race, a byword and a mockery, to whom it is a
sin against Heaven even to speak?"

"They would not marry us," she breathed helplessly.

"But couldst thou love me?"

Her eyes drooped as she breathed, "The more for thy sufferings."

But even in the ecstasy of this her acknowledgment, he had a chill
undercurrent of consciousness that she did not understand; that, never
having lived in an unpersecuted Jewish community, she had no real
sense of its own persecuting power. Still, there was no need to remain
in Amsterdam now: they would live together in some lonely spot, in the
religion of Right Reason that he would teach her. So their hands came
together again, and once their lips met. But the father was yet to be
told of their sudden-born, sudden-grown love, and this with
characteristic impulse Uriel did as soon as the old physician awoke.

"God bless my soul!" said Dom Diego, "am I dreaming still?"

His sense of dream increased when Uriel went on to repeat the story of
his excommunication.

"And the ban--is it still in force?" he interrupted.

"It has not been removed," said Uriel sadly.

The burly graybeard sprang to his feet. "And with such a brand upon
thy brow thou didst dare speak to my daughter!"

"Father!" cried Ianthe.

"Father me not! He hath beguiled us here under false pretences. He
hath made us violate the solemn decree of the synagogue. He is
outlawed--he and his house and his food.--Sinner! The viands thou
hast given us, what of them? Is thy meat ritually prepared?"

"Thou, a man of culture, carest for these childish things?"

"Childish things? Wherefore, then, have I left my Portugal?"

"All ceremonies are against Right Reason," said Uriel in low tones,
his face grown deadly white.

"Now I see that thou hast never understood our holy and beautiful
religion. Men of culture, forsooth! Is not our Amsterdam congregation
full of men of culture--gramm