Hannah tottered forwards through the few feet of hall.  The cloak and hat on the peg nodded to her sardonically.  A wild thrill of answering defiance shot through her:  she stretched out her hands towards them.  “Fly, fly; it is your last chance,” said the blood throbbing in her ears.  But her hand dropped to her side and in that brief instant of terrible illumination, Hannah saw down the whole long vista of her future life, stretching straight and unlovely between great blank walls, on, on to a solitary grave; knew that the strength had been denied her to diverge to the right or left, that for her there would be neither Exodus nor Redemption.  Strong in the conviction of her weakness she noisily threw open the street door.  The face of David, sallow and ghastly, loomed upon her in the darkness.  Great drops of rain fell from his hat and ran down his cheeks like tears.  His clothes seemed soaked with rain.

“At last!” he exclaimed in a hoarse, glad whisper.  “What has kept you?”

“Boruch Habo! (Welcome art thou who arrivest)” came the voice of Reb Shemuel front within, greeting the prophet.

“Hush!” said Hannah.  “Listen a moment.”

The sing-song undulations of the old Rabbi’s voice mingled harshly with the wail of the wind:  “Pour out Thy wrath on the heathen who acknowledge Thee not and upon the Kingdoms which invoke not Thy name, for they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his Temple.  Pour out Thy indignation upon them and cause Thy fierce anger to overtake them.  Pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.”

“Quick, Hannah!” whispered David.  “We can’t wait a moment more.  Put on your things.  We shall miss the train.”

A sudden inspiration came to her.  For answer she drew his ring out of her pocket and slipped it into his hand.

“Good-bye!” she murmured in a strange hollow voice, and slammed the street door in his face.

“Hannah!”

His startled cry of agony and despair penetrated the woodwork, muffled to an inarticulate shriek.  He rattled the door violently in unreasoning frenzy.

“Who’s that?  What’s that noise?” asked the Rebbitzin.

“Only some Christian rough shouting in the street,” answered Hannah.

It was truer than she knew.

* * * * *

The rain fell faster, the wind grew shriller, but the Children of the Ghetto basked by their firesides in faith and hope and contentment.  Hunted from shore to shore through the ages, they had found the national aspiration—­Peace—­in a country where Passover came, without menace of blood.  In the garret of Number 1 Royal Street little Esther Ansell sat brooding, her heart full of a vague tender poetry and penetrated by the beauties of Judaism, which, please God, she would always cling to; her childish vision looking forward hopefully to the larger life that the years would bring.