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."