“To whom?” he asked anxiously.

“To a Jew,” she hastened to assure him, “But he is neither a Talmud-sage nor pious.  He is newly returned from the Cape.”

“Ah, they are a link lot,” muttered the Reb anxiously.  “Where didst thou first meet him?”

“At the Club,” she answered.  “At the Purim Ball—­the night before Sam Levine came round here to be divorced from me.”

He wrinkled his great brow.  “Thy mother would have thee go,” he said.  “Thou didst not deserve I should get thee the divorce.  What is his name?”

“David Brandon.  He is not like other Jewish young men; I thought he was and did him wrong and mocked at him when first he spoke to me, so that afterwards I felt tender towards him.  His conversation is agreeable, for he thinks for himself, and deeming thou wouldst not hear of such a match and that there was no danger, I met him at the Club several times in the evening, and—­and—­thou knowest the rest.”

She turned away her face, blushing, contrite, happy, anxious.

Her love-story was as simple as her telling of it.  David Brandon was not the shadowy Prince of her maiden dreams, nor was the passion exactly as she had imagined it; it was both stronger and stranger, and the sense of secrecy and impending opposition instilled into her love a poignant sweetness.

The Reb stroked her hair silently.

“I would not have said ‘Yea’ so quick, father,” she went on, “but David had to go to Germany to take a message to the aged parents of his Cape chum, who died in the gold-fields.  David had promised the dying man to go personally as soon as he returned to England—­I think it was a request for forgiveness and blessing—­but after meeting me he delayed going, and when I learned of it I reproached him, but he said he could not tear himself away, and he would not go till I had confessed I loved him.  At last I said if he would go home the moment I said it and not bother about getting me a ring or anything, but go off to Germany the first thing the next morning, I would admit I loved him a little bit.  Thus did it occur.  He went off last Wednesday.  Oh, isn’t it cruel to think, father, that he should be going with love and joy in his heart to the parents of his dead friend!”

Her father’s head was bent.  She lifted it up by the chin and looked pleadingly into the big brown eyes.

“Thou art not angry with me, father?”

“No, Hannah.  But thou shouldst have told me from the first.”

“I always meant to, father.  But I feared to grieve thee.”

“Wherefore?  The man is a Jew.  And thou lovest him, dost thou not?”

“As my life, father.”

He kissed her lips.

“It is enough, my Hannah.  With thee to love him, he will become pious.  When a man has a good Jewish wife like my beloved daughter, who will keep a good Jewish house, he cannot be long among the sinners.  The light of a true Jewish home will lead his footsteps back to God.”