And for all that she could not answer; yet Israel did not forget that, beside the sounds of earth and sky, Naomi was hearing words, and that words had wings, and were alive, and, for good or ill, made their mark on the soul that listened to them.  So he continued to read to her out of the Book of the Law, day after day at sunset, according to his wont and custom.  And when an evil spirit seemed to make a mock at him, and to say, “Fool! she hears, but does she understand?” he remembered how he had read to her in the days of her deafness, and he said to himself, “Shall I have less faith now that she can hear?”

But, though he turned his back on the temptation to let go of Naomi’s soul at last, yet sometimes his heart misgave him; for when he spoke to her it seemed to him that he was like a man that shouts into a cavern and gets back no answer but the sound of his own voice.  If he told her of the sky, that it was broad as the ocean, what could she see of the great deeps to measure them?  And if he told her of the sea, that it was green as the fields, what could she see of the grass to know its colour?  And sometimes as he spoke to her it smote him suddenly that the words themselves which he used to speak with were no more to Naomi than the notes which Ali struck from his dead harp, or the bleat of the goat at her feet.

Nevertheless, his faith was great, and he said in his heart, “Let the Lord find His own way to her spirit.”  So he continued to speak with her as often as he was near her, telling her of the little things that concerned their household, as well as of the greater things it was good for her soul to know.

It was a touching sight—­the lonely man, the outcast among his people, talking with his daughter though she was blind and dumb, telling her of God, of heaven, of death and resurrection, strong in his faith that his words would not fail, but that the casket of her soul would be opened to receive them, and that they would lie within until the great day of judgment, when the Lord Himself would call for them.

Did Naomi hear his words to understand them, or did they fall dead on her ear like birds on a dead sea?  In her darkness and her silence was she putting them together, comparing them, interpreting them, pondering them, imitating them, gathering food for her mind from them, and solace for her spirit?  Israel did not know; and, watch her face as he would, he could never learn.  Hope!  Faith!  Trust!  What else was left to him?  He clung to all three, he grappled them to him; they were his sheet-anchor and his pole-star.  But one day they seemed to be his calenture also—­the false picture of green fields and sweet female faces that rises before the eye of the sailor becalmed at sea.