"By the authority of his own words," she replied triumphantly. "Here, you can read the confession for yourself." She drew forth the little journal and pointed to the records.
"There, read first: 'If I thought Mark Abrams loved her, I would kill him."
"Great God!" gasped the rabbi, looking again at the record as though he thought his eyes had deceived him.
"Here again, see here," said Rebecca, pointing to one other record: "'Dead men tell no tales.' Was that not some deed of his foul doing that he did not wish discovered?" she continued, as she turned onward through the book.
"He shall die!" exclaimed Mr. Mordecai, quivering with rage and astonishment, while the stricken father turned and walked sadly across the floor, exclaiming, "Ah me! ah me! Alas! my poor boy?" while the mother's wounded heart bled afresh.
"See here again," said Rebecca, pointing with her finger to another record that bore upon the mystery.
"Enough! enough!" exclaimed the father, averting his head and waving her to silence with his hand. "I have seen enough; the mystery is plain, the truth at last revealed. O God, the dreadful truth!"
Mr. Mordecai stamped his foot, clenched his hands, and muttering half audibly, "This villain has ruined you, has broken my heart, and destroyed the hopes of my child; and he shall die!"
"But, poor Leah, my husband," said Rebecca, half timidly, and with a semblance of deep feeling.
"Leah!" he angrily repeated, "dare you even, now, speak that name to me? Would to God she were dead! Never insult me again with the utterance of that name?"