“Then you knew nothing?” faltered the librarian; and, raising his neck higher than usual, the vein in the centre of his forehead swelled with wrath.

“No, Anselme!” said the abbot.  “But it was your duty to speak, as, unfortunately, it was mine to listen.  Come to me again, by and bye; I have something to say to you.”

The librarian bowed silently, coldly and proudly, and without vouchsafing the magistrate a single glance, went back, not to his books, but to his cell, where he paced up and down a long time, sorrowfully murmuring Lopez’s name, striking himself on the mouth, pressing his clenched hand to his brow, and at last throwing himself on his knees to pray for the Jew, before the image of the crucified Redeemer.

As soon as the monk had left the room, the magistrate exclaimed: 

“What unexpected aid!  What series of sins lie before us!  First the small ones.  He had never worn the Jews’ badge, and allowed himself to be served by Christians, for Caspar’s daughters were often at the House to help in sewing.  A sword was found in his dwelling, and the Jew, who carries weapons, renounces, since he uses self-protection, the aid of the authorities.  Finally, we know that Lopez used an assumed name.  Now we come to the great offences.  They are divided into four parts.  He has practised magic spells; he has sought to corrupt a Christian’s son by heresies; he has led a Christian woman into a marriage; and he has—­I close with the worst—­he has reared the daughter of a Christian woman, I mean his wife, a Jewess!”

“Reared his child a Jewess?  Do you know that positively?” asked the abbot.

“She bears the Jewish name of Ruth.  What I have taken the liberty to make prominent are well chosen, clearly-proved crimes, worthy of death.  Your learning is great, Reverend Abbot, but I know the old writers, too.  The Emperor Constantius made marriages between Jews and Christians punishable with death.  I can show you the passage.”

The abbot felt that the crime of which the Jew was accused was a heavy and unpardonable one, but he regarded only the sin, and it vexed him to see how the magistrate’s zeal was exclusively turned against the unhappy criminal.  So he rose, saying with cold hauteur: 

“Then do your duty.”

“Rely upon it.  We shall capture him and his family to-morrow.  The town-clerk is full of zeal too.  We shall not be able to harm the child, but it must be taken from the Jew and receive a Christian education.  It would be our right to do this, even if both parents were Hebrews.  You know the Freiburg case.  No less a personage than the great Ulrich Zasius has decided, that Jewish children might be baptized without their father’s knowledge.  I beg you to send Father Anselm to the town-hall on Saturday as a witness.”

“Very well,” replied the prelate, but he spoke with so little eagerness, that it justly surprised the magistrate.  “Well then, catch the Jew; but take him alive.  And one thing more!  I wish to see and speak to the doctor, before you torture him.”