'I remember exactly. It was the night before the first Seder night.'
'Was he well?'
'Perfectly.'
'Oh, I am so glad.'
She told Esther of Levi's strange failure to appear at the annual family festival. 'My father went out to look for him. Our anxiety was intolerable. He did not return till half-past one in the morning. He was in a terrible state. "Well," we asked, "have you seen him?" "I have seen him," he answered. "He is dead."'
Esther grew pallid. Was this the sequel to the strange episode in Mr. Henry Goldsmith's library?
'Of course he wasn't really dead,' pursued Hannah, to Esther's relief. 'My father would hardly speak a word more, but we gathered he had seen him doing something very dreadful, and that henceforth Levi would be dead to him. Since then we dare not speak his name. Please don't refer to him at tea. I went to his rooms on the sly a few days afterwards, but he had left them, and since then I haven't been able to hear anything of him. Sometimes I fancy he's gone off to the Cape.'
'More likely to the provinces with a band of strolling players. He told me he thought of throwing up the law for the boards, and I know you cannot make a beginning in London.'
'Do you think that's it?' said Hannah, looking relieved in her turn.
'I feel sure that's the explanation, if he's not in London. But what in Heaven's name can your father have seen him doing?'