“Is it thus?” he asked. And the heavenly smile grew more radiant as he made the sign of the Cross.
Again the woman inclined her head.
“Be it not upon me!” she exclaimed earnestly. “Though I would it might be for ever so with thee.”
“It is for ever,” the boy answered.
He went forward and prostrated himself before the high altar, and the soft light hovered above him. The woman knelt at a little distance from him, with clasped hands and upturned eyes. The church was very dark and silent.
An old man in a monk’s robe came forward out of the shadow of the choir and stood behind the marble rails and looked down at the boy’s prostrate figure, wonderingly. Then the low gateway was opened and he descended the three steps and bent down to the young head.
“What wouldest thou?” he asked.
Simon Abeles rose until he knelt, and looked up into the old man’s face.
“I am a Jew. I would be a Christian. I would be baptized.”
“Fearest thou not thy people?” the monk asked.