"O Bram! is he dead?"
"Who? Neil? I think he will get well once more."
"What care I for Neil? The wicked one! I wish that he might die. Yes, that I do."
"Whish!—to say that is wrong."
"Bram! Bram! A little pity give me. It is the other one. Hast thou heard?"
"How can he live? Look at that sorrow, dear one, and ask God to forgive and help thee."
"No, I will not look at it. I will ask God every moment that he may get well. Could I help that I should love him? So kind, so generous, is he! Oh, my dear one, my dear one, would I had died for thee!"
Bram was much moved. Within the last twenty-four hours he had begun to understand the temptation in which Katherine had been; begun to understand that love never asks, 'What is thy name? Of what country art thou? Who is thy father?' He felt that so long as he lived he must remember Miriam Cohen as she stood talking to him in the shadowy store. Beauty like hers was strange and wonderful to the young Dutchman. He could not forget her large eyes, soft and brown as gazelle's; the warm pallor and brilliant carnation of her complexion; her rosy, tender mouth; her abundant black hair, fastened with large golden pins, studded with jewels. He could not forget the grace of her figure, straight and slim as a young palm-tree, clad in a plain dark garment, and a neckerchief of white India silk falling away from her exquisite throat. He did not yet know that he was in love; he only felt how sweet it was to sit still and dream of the dim place, and the splendidly beautiful girl standing among its piled-up furniture and its hanging draperies. And this memory of Miriam made him very pitiful to Katherine.
"Every one is angry at me, Bram, even my father; and Batavius will not sit on the chair at my side; and Joanna says a great disgrace I have made for her. And thou? Wilt thou also scold me? I think I shall die of grief."
"Scold thee, thou little one? That I will not. And those that are angry with thee may be angry with me also. And if there is any comfort I can get thee, tell thy brother Bram. He will count thee first, before all others. How could they make thee weep? Cruel are they to do so. And as for Batavius, mind him not. Not much I think of Batavius! If he says this or that to thee, I will answer him."