“I will do all you say,” moaned the young woman.

“Will you have strength to do it?” he asked, gently.

“I shall be as silent as death,” she replied.

“And one thing more I have to say to you,” he continued.  “You are the wife of your husband.  Return home and be a Jewish wife.”

“I understand you,” she sobbed in reply.

“Go to your home now, and bring peace to your parents and husband.  The time will come when you may speak, when your sin will be forgiven you.  Till then bear what has been laid upon you.”

“May I say one thing more?” she cried, lifting up her head.

“Speak,” he said.

“Naphtali!”

The rabbi covered his eyes with one hand, with the other motioned her to be silent.  But she grasped his hand, drew it to her lips.  Hot tears fell upon it.

“Go now,” he sobbed, completely broken down.

She let go the hand.  The rabbi had seized the candle, but she had already passed him, and glided through the dark hall.  The door was left open.  The rabbi locked it again.

* * * * *

Veile returned to her home, as she had escaped, unnoticed.  The narrow street was deserted, as desolate as death.  The searchers were to be found everywhere except there where they ought first to have sought for the missing one.  Her mother, Selde, still sat on the same chair on which she had sunk down an hour ago.  The fright had left her like one paralyzed, and she was unable to rise.  What a wonderful contrast this wedding-room, with the mother sitting alone in it, presented to the hilarity reigning here shortly before!  On Veile’s entrance her mother did not cry out.  She had no strength to do so.  She merely said:  “So you have come at last, my daughter?” as if Veile had only returned from a walk somewhat too long.  But the young woman did not answer to this and similar questions.  Finally she signified by gesticulations that she could not speak.  Fright seized the wretched mother a second time, and the entire house was filled with her lamentations.

Ruben Klattaner and Veile’s husband having now returned from their fruitless search, were horrified on perceiving the change which Veile had undergone.  Being men, they did not weep.  With staring eyes they gazed upon the silent young woman, and beheld in her an apparition which had been dealt with by God’s visitation in a mysterious manner.

From this hour began the terrible penance of the young woman.

The impression which Veile’s woeful condition made upon the people of the gasse was wonderful.  Those who had danced with her that evening on the wedding now first recalled her excited state.  Her wild actions were now first remembered by many.  It must have been an “evil eye,” they concluded—­a jealous, evil eye, to which her beauty was hateful.  This alone could have possessed her with a demon of unrest.  She was