“That is enough for his old friend; hap me over again, Andrew, and I’ll rest in peace till the trumpet sound.”

Carmichael turned aside, but he heard something desperately like a sob from the back of the dog-cart, and the Rabbi saying, “God be with you, George, and as your father’s father received me in the day of my sore discouragement, so may the Lord God of Israel open a door for you in every land whithersoever you go, and bring you in at last through the gates into the city.”  The Rabbi watched George till the dog-cart faded away into the dusk of the winter’s day, and they had settled for the night in their places among the books before the Rabbi spoke.

It was with a wistful tenderness that he turned to Carmichael and touched him slightly with his hand, as was a fashion with the Rabbi.

“You will not think me indifferent to your welfare because I have not inquired about your affairs, for indeed this could not be, but the going forth of this lad has tried my heart.  Is there aught, John, that it becometh you to tell me, and wherein my years can be of any avail?”

“It is not about doctrine I wished to speak to you, Rabbi, although I am troubled thus also, but about . . . you remember our talk.”

“About the maid—­surely; I cannot forget her, and indeed often think of her since the day you brought me to her house and made me known unto her, which was much courtesy to one who is fitter for a book-room than a woman’s company.

“She is fair of face and hath a pleasant manner, and surely beauty and a winsome way are from God; there seemed also a certain contempt of baseness and a strength of will which are excellent.  Perhaps my judgment is not even because Miss Carnegie was gracious to me, and you know, John, it is not in me to resist kindness, but this is how she seems to me.  Has there been trouble between you?”

“Do not misunderstand me, Rabbi; I have not spoken one word of love to . . .  Miss Carnegie, nor she to me; but I love her, and I thought that perhaps she saw that I loved her.  But now it looks as if . . . what I hoped is never to be”; and Carmichael told how Kate had risen and left the Church in hot wrath because he had compared Queen Mary to Jezebel.

“Is it not marvellous,” mused the Rabbi, looking into the fire, “how one woman, who was indeed at the time little more than a girl, did carry men, many of them wise and clever, away as with a flood, and still divideth scholars and even . . . friends?

“It was not fitting that Miss Carnegie should have left God’s house in heat of temper, and it seemeth to us that she hath a wrong reading of history, but it is surely good that she hath her convictions, and holdeth them fast like a brave maid.

“Is it not so, John, that friends, and doubtless also . . . lovers, have been divided by conscience, and have been on opposite sides in the great conflict, and doth not this show how much of conscience there is among men?