“He is not well, Mrs. Kretznow,” Sister Margaret ventured to say in her best Yiddish. “Or he is busy working. Work is not so slack any more.” Alone in the institution she shared Sarah’s ignorance of the Kretznow scandal. Talk of it died before her youth and sweetness.
“He would have written,” said Sarah, sternly. “He is wearied of me. I have lain here a year. Job’s curse is on me.”
“Shall I to him,” Sister Margaret paused to excogitate the word, “write?”
“No. He hears me knocking at his heart.”
They had flashes of strange savage poetry, these crude yet complex souls. Sister Margaret, who was still liable to be startled, murmured feebly, “But——”
“Leave me in peace!” with a cry like that of a wounded animal.
The matron gently touched the novice’s arm, and drew her away. “I will write to him,” she whispered.
Night fell, but sleep fell only for some. Sarah Kretznow tossed in a hell of loneliness. Ah, surely her husband had not forgotten her; surely she would not lie thus till death—that far-off death her strong religious instinct would forbid her hastening! She had gone into the Refuge to save him the constant sight of her helplessness and the cost of her keep. Was she now to be cut off forever from the sight of his strength?
The next day he came by special invitation. His face was sallow, rimmed with swarthy hair; his under lip was sensuous. He hung his head, half veiling the shifty eyes.
Sister Margaret ran to tell his wife. Sarah’s face sparkled.