There was a hearth for cooking in the hut, and two rooms, one large and one small, for in summer the charcoal-burners’ wives and children live with them.  The travellers needed rest and refreshment, and might have found both here, had not fear embittered the food and driven sleep from their weary eyes.

Jorg was to return early the next morning with a team of horses.  This was a great consolation.  Old Rahel, too, had regained her self-control, and was sound asleep.

The children followed her example, and at midnight Elizabeth slept too.

Marx lay beside the hearth, and from his crooked mouth came a strange, snoring noise, that sounded like the last note of an organ-pipe, from which the air is expiring.

Hours after all the others were asleep, Adam and the doctor still sat on a sack of straw, engaged in earnest conversation.

Lopez had told his friend the story of his happiness and sorrow, closing with the words: 

“So you know who we are, and why we left our home.  You are giving me your future, together with many other things; no gift can repay you; but first of all, it was due you that you should know my past.”

Then, holding out his hand to the smith, he asked:  “You are a Christian; will you still cleave to me, after what you have heard?”

Adam silently pressed the Jew’s right hand, and after remaining lost in thought for a time, said in a hollow tone: 

“If they catch you, and—­Holy Virgin—­if they discover . . .  Ruth. . . .  She is not really a Jew’s child . . . have you reared her as a Jewess?”

“No; only as a good human child.”

“Is she baptized?”

Lopez answered this question also in the negative.  The smith shook his head disapprovingly, but the doctor said:  “She knows more about Jesus, than many a Christian child of her age.  When she is grown up, she will be free to follow either her mother or her father.”

“Why have you not become a Christian yourself?  Forgive the question.  Surely you are one at heart.”

“That, that . . . you see, there are things. . . .  Suppose that every male scion of your family, from generation to generation, for many hundred years, had been a smith, and now a boy should grow up, who said:  I—­I despise your trade?’”

“If Ulrich should say:  ‘I-I wish to be an artist;’ it would be agreeable to me.”

“Even if smiths were persecuted like us Jews, and he ran from your guild to another out of fear?”

“No—­that would be base, and can scarcely be compared with your case; for see—­you are acquainted with everything, even what is called Christianity; nay, the Saviour is dear to you; you have already told me so.  Well then!  Suppose you were a foundling and were shown our faith and yours, and asked for which you would decide, which would you choose?”

“We pray for life and peace, and where peace exists, love cannot be lacking, and yet!  Perhaps I might decide for yours.”