“You have been very generous and very kind to my father; but surely now you have parted friendship with him?”
“No, I have not, as I told even him; but, were it not so, for your sake it should be.”
“I have God to look after me, Herr Holcombe.”
“But I want to be his instrument.”
“His Raphael, as you have been to us through this desert of want and poverty.”
“And will you not be my Sarah?” he asked suddenly, but in a soft, low voice.
Her whole frame shook; then she looked up in his face, silent.
“I have loved you since I knew you,” he went on to say; “I mean since I saw you first; but I never meant to tell my secret, for you know I could not wed a Jewess. But now, thank God! the bar is gone, and I can be happy without sin.”
She did not answer yet.
“Have I deceived myself, then?” asked the young man sadly. “And do you not love me, as I hoped?”