“Put me out? But I am an old man, and your uncle; and so you won't, eh?” rejoined the rabbi, with maddening coolness.
“You must forgive me,” said Elias, recovering a little his self-possession. “I ought not to have threatened you. I didn't mean to. But you don't know how you make me suffer. You don't know what torture it is.”
“Oh, that's all right. You needn't apologize,” the rabbi said.
“But what I ask,” Elias went on, “I ask as a kindness, please leave me alone.”
“That,” returned the rabbi, “is a request which I am compelled to deny.”
Elias stood still for an instant, as if undetermined what to do. He felt the blood rush angrily to his brain, and then sink away, leaving a violent ache behind it. “Well, I suppose I'll have to grin and bear it, then,” he said by and by, and dropped upon a chair.
After an interval of silence Elias began, with sufficient coolness, “Would you mind telling me why you consider it your duty to remain with me all day?”
“It is my duty to be on hand, to be at your side, when the moment of your need shall arrive. It may be any moment now.”
“Of my need? I don't understand.”
“When the Lord manifests Himself,” the rabbi explained.