“Gabriel, my dear, precious Gabriel, what have you done?  Tell me.  I demand to know it as my right.  When we were married on the Lido, in the solemn stillness of the night, when we joined hands, and both swore in the presence of your and my God that we would ever love one another, and that death alone should part us, when you said, ‘I take you to be my wife,’ and I said, ‘I take you to be my husband,’ then we likewise swore that we would live truly and confidentially with one another, and have no secrets from each other.  Gabriel, fulfill now your oath.  I demand it of you, by the memory of that hour, by my love for you, by our child.  Gabriel, what have you done?”

“I can not tell it, and you may not hear it, Rebecca.  For, once uttered, that word will be a two-edged sword, and plunge us both in misery and shame!”

“Shame!  There is no shame for the Jewess!  Misery!  Tell me a form of misery which I have not suffered and endured from childhood up!  My mother was stabbed in Venice by a nobleman because she would not break her faith with my father and desert him.  My father was known as a sorcerer and vender of poisons.  The noblemen used secretly to resort by night to our wretched house upon the Ghetto, and paid him great sums for his drugs, but if he showed himself upon the streets by day, the populace hooted and cast stones after him.  And when they saw me, they hissed and mocked, bestowing opprobrious epithets upon me, and even went out of the way to avoid the contamination of my touch, for I was the daughter of a poisoner, a secret bravo—­I was a Jewess!  But when I was grown, then the young noblemen came to my father, not merely for the sake of his drugs and medicines, but also—­hush!  Not a breath of it!  You were my deliverer—­my savior!  You rescued me from all distress; you were to me as the Messiah, in whom my people have hoped for a thousand years.  I followed you, and I shall go with you my whole life long—­go with you to the scaffold, if needs be.  I know it, Gabriel, I read it in your countenance; you have committed a crime!”

“A crime!  A fearful crime!” said he, shuddering.  “Turn your head away, Rebecca, I am not worthy that you should look upon me!”

“I do look upon you, Gabriel, I condemn you not.  I am thinking of what we said to one another in the count’s picture gallery.  I called to you to rescue me at any price.  I told you that if I could purchase deliverance thereby, I was ready to commit a crime.  That to be with you again I would abjure the faith of my fathers, although I knew I should die of penitence after the perpetration of such a crime.”

“And I replied to you, Rebecca, that I, too, was ready to perpetrate a crime for the sake of rescuing you and calling you my own again, and that I would not die of penitence.”

“And yet you do repent, Gabriel, you shudder at yourself for you have done it, you have committed a crime.  I will have my share in it, half of it belongs to me.  In the sight of God, I am your wife, and you have sworn to share everything with me.  Then divide with me, Gabriel; I claim my right.  Share with me your crime, or I shall think that you love me no more, and then I shall go away, and you will never see me more.”