“Blest child of Abraham, thy faith is great, though I be but a pitiable guide; yet I’ll adopt thy similes. Be thou and I, to each other, Jordan, rivulet and flower by turn; the fresh current gives life to plant and blossom, while plant and blossom both shade and beautify the streams. With both it shall be well, if we well learn to seek deep for the hidden springs of the life that can never die. Already thou hast blessed me very greatly, gathering truths I failed to find. Thou return’st to me multiplied all I bestow.”
“Would I could gather for all; for my race, so blinded! Oh, it is a tristful thought that the nearer I get to God, the further I get from them I love next after Him. Even my mother was wont to say to me, when, as a questioning boy, I inquired beyond the traditions of the Rabbis, that she’d disown me to all eternity as a heretic. My belief has made me an outcast to her, and yet the thought of her hating me tears my heart.”
“I’ll love thy orphaned heart.”
“Me? Love me; so far beneath thee and with such pauper power of payment?”
“Thy desolation makes thee rich; having none other to love, thou canst love me the more. Thou know’st this open secret of loving; its selfishness demands all; getting that it gives all. Fear not Ichabod, but that thou’lt find the hunger of thy heart well fed. It is as natural for us to love those we have helped as to hate those we have harmed. Thou know’st how men wonder that the Infinite can love the finite, but they forget, or never realized, that one may love because he has loved. So is it with God. He loves, and that He loves becomes therefore rich and worthful to Him.”
The morning after the betrothal, shall we call it, of these two men to each other, long before dawn the knight was wakened by a cautious step on the stone floor of his sleeping place. Sir Charleroy was at once all alert and leaped from the couch, sword in hand, expecting to confront some gipsy thief, for there had been a band of these wanderers hovering near the day before.
“Who’s there?” sternly he demanded, advancing, on guard meanwhile.
“Ichabod, Ichabod!” with trembling voice and in a half whisper. It was the Jew.
“I did not mean to fright thee,” he hurriedly explained, when he had recovered from his fear of being thrust through, “but I’ve news; bad news that would not wait!”