“What limit, then, did you put to my debasement?  In what direction had I still a scrap of trustworthiness and honour left?”

“Tell me that yourself, instead of talking to no purpose in this frenzied way.  Why do you come here, if you only wish to renew our old differences?”

“You were the first to do so.”

“Can I pretend to be friendly with you, Reuben?  What word of penitence have you spoken?  In what have you amended yourself?  Is not every other sentence you speak a defence of yourself and scorn upon me?”

“And what right have you to judge me?  Of course I defend myself, and as scornfully as you like, when I am despised and condemned by one who knows as little of me as the first stranger I pass on the road.  Cannot you come forward with a face like a sister’s, and leave my faults for my own conscience? You judge me!  What do you, with your nun’s experiences, your heart chilled, your paltry view of the world through a chapel window, know of a man whose passions boil in him like the fire in yonder mountain?  I should subdue my passions.  Excellent text for a copy book in a girls’ school!  I should be another man than I am; I should remould myself; I should cool my brain with doctrine.  With a bullet, if you like; say that, and you will tell the truth.  But with the truth you have nothing to do; too long ago you were taught that you must never face that.  Do you deal as truthfully with yourself as I with my own heart?  I wonder, I wonder.”

Miriam’s eyes had fallen.  She stood quite motionless, with a face of suffering.

“You want me to confess my sins?” Reuben continued, walking about in uncontrollable excitement.  “What is your chapel formula?  Find one comprehensive enough, and let me repeat it after you; only mind that it includes hypocrisy, for the sake of the confession.  I tell you I am conscious of no sins.  Of follies, of ignorances, of miseries—­ as many as you please.  And to what account should they all go?  Was I so admirably guided in childhood and boyhood that my subsequent life is not to be explained?  It succeeded in your case, my poor sister.  Oh, nobly!  Don’t be afraid that I shall outrage you by saying all I think.  But just think of me as a result of Jewish education applied to an English lad, and one whose temperament was plain enough to eyes of ordinary penetration.  My very name!  Your name, too!  You it has made a Jew in soul; upon me it weighs like a curse as often as I think of it.  It symbolizes all that is making my life a brutal failure—­a failure—­a failure!”

He threw himself upon the couch and became silent, his strength at an end, even his countenance exhausted of vitality, looking haggard and almost ignoble.  Miriam stirred at length, for the first time, and gazed steadily at him.

“Reuben, let us have an end of this,” she said, in a voice half choked.  “Stay or go as you will; but I shall utter no more reproaches.  You must make of your life what you can.  As you say, I don’t understand you.  Perhaps the mere fact of my being a woman is enough to make that impossible.  Only don’t throw your scorn at me for believing what you can’t believe.  Talk quietly; avoid those subjects; tell me, if you wish to, what you are doing or think of doing.”