eight and there would be still time to think. Nine!  She waited, her ear longing for the tenth stroke.  If it were only ten o’clock, it would be too late.  The danger would be over.  She sat, mechanically watching the hands.  They crept on.  It was five minutes past the hour.  She felt sure that David was already at the corner of the street, getting wet and a little impatient.  She half rose from her chair.  It was not a nice night for an elopement.  She sank back into her seat.  Perhaps they had best wait till to-morrow night.  She would go and tell David so.  But then he would not mind the weather; once they had met he would bundle her into the cab and they would roll on leaving the old world irrevocably behind.  She sat in a paralysis of volition; rigid on her chair, magnetized by the warm comfortable room, the old familiar furniture, the Passover table—­with its white table-cloth and its decanter and wine-glasses, the faces of her father and mother eloquent with the appeal of a thousand memories.  The clock ticked on loudly, fiercely, like a summoning drum; the rain beat an impatient tattoo on the window-panes, the wind rattled the doors and casements.  “Go forth, go forth,” they called, “go forth where your lover waits you, to bear you of into the new and the unknown.”  And the louder they called the louder Reb Shemuel trolled his hilarious Grace:  May He who maketh Peace in the High Heavens, bestow Peace upon us and upon all Israel and say ye, Amen.

The hands of the clock crept on.  It was half-past nine.  Hannah sat lethargic, numb, unable to think, her strung-up nerves grown flaccid, her eyes full of bitter-sweet tears, her soul floating along as in a trance on the waves of a familiar melody.  Suddenly she became aware that the others had risen and that her father was motioning to her.  Instinctively she understood; rose automatically and went to the door; then a great shock of returning recollection whelmed her soul.  She stood rooted to the floor.  Her father had filled Elijah’s goblet with wine and it was her annual privilege to open the door for the prophet’s entry.  Intuitively she knew that David was pacing madly in front of the house, not daring to make known his presence, and perhaps cursing her cowardice.  A chill terror seized her.  She was afraid to face him—­his will was strong and mighty; her fevered imagination figured it as the wash of a great ocean breaking on the doorstep threatening to sweep her off into the roaring whirlpool of doom.  She threw the door of the room wide and paused as if her duty were done.

“Nu, nu,” muttered Reb Shemuel, indicating the outer door.  It was so near that he always had that opened, too.