They mingled their tears in sweet reconciliation. Presently the Reb said:
'Go now to thy mother, and see also that the boy's room be made ready as of old. Perchance God will hear my prayer, and he will yet be restored to us.'
A new peace fell upon Hannah's soul. 'My sacrifice was not in vain after all,' she thought, with a throb of happiness that was almost exultation.
But Levi never came back. The news of his death arrived on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in a letter to Esther, who had been left in charge of the house.
'He died quietly at the end,' Hannah wrote, 'happy in the consciousness of father's forgiveness, and leaning trustfully upon his interposition with Heaven; but he had delirious moments, during which he raved painfully. The poor boy was in great fear of death, moaning prayers that he might be spared till after Yom Kippur, when he would be cleansed of sin, and babbling about serpents that would twine themselves round his arm and brow, like the phylacteries he had not worn. He made father repeat his "Verse" to him over and over again, so that he might remember his name when the angel of the grave asked it; and borrowed father's phylacteries, the headpiece of which was much too large for him with his shaven crown. When he had them on, and the Talith round him, he grew easier, and began murmuring the death-bed prayers with father. One of them runs: "O may my death be an atonement for all the sins, iniquities and transgressions of which I have been guilty against Thee!" I trust it may be so indeed. It seems so hard for a young man full of life and high spirits to be cut down, while the wretched are left alive. Your name was often on his lips. I was glad to learn he thought so much of you. "Be sure to give Esther my love," he said almost with his last breath, "and ask her to forgive me." I know not if you have anything to forgive, or whether this was delirium. He looks quite calm now—but oh! so worn. They have closed the eyes. The beard he shocked father so by shaving off has sprouted scrubbily during his illness. On the dead face it seems a mockery, like the Talith and phylacteries that have not been removed.'
A phrase of Leonard James vibrated in Esther's ears: 'If the chappies could see me!'