“Do you think, Miss Robart,” he went on, “if you were situated as was that beautiful woman whom we have just seen freed from the Mosaic bond, that you would have braved the Chalitza ceremony, or would you have taken advantage of the English law and——”
She lifted her great, black, lustrous eyes to his in a sudden gaze of utter frankness, as, interrupting him, she cried:
“I would certainly not marry any man, save one whom I could wholly revere and love!”
“Happy the man whom you shall thus honour, Miss Robart!”
Tom Hammond barely whispered the words, and she was not wholly sure that he meant them for her ears. She did not respond in any way. But she was conscious that his gaze was fixed upon her. She was equally conscious that she was blushing furiously.
Perhaps it was to give her a chance of recovering herself, that his next question was on quite a different topic.
“Are you, Miss Robart,” he said, “wholly wedded to the Jewish faith? Do you believe, for instance, that Jesus, the Nazarene, was an impostor?”
He heard the catch that came into her throat. Then, with a half-frightened look around, she lifted her melting eyes to his, as she said, “I can trust you, Mr. Hammond, I know. You will keep my confidence, if I give it to you?”
His eyes answered her, and she went on.
“I have not dared to breathe a word of it to anyone, not even to my good brother-in-law Abraham, but I am learning to love the Christ.”