She shook her head. “I must speak the truth, dear,” she answered, softly, “or I should despise myself for a coward.”
Then she sank on to a chair, almost overcome with the heat and the excitement. The blow had fallen; she dared not think what the consequence would be.
“For the wife of the Governor of Haifa to be a Christian is a scandalous thing,” repeated Ben Yetzel quietly, in Hebrew. “Either Mr. Montella must resign his post, or there must be a divorce.”
Dr. Engelmacher was the only one near enough to hear his dictum.
“Gently, my dear sir,” he returned, in a tone of reproof. “If we live, we shall see; there is plenty of time.”
But he knew that his friend Montella was in a most difficult predicament, and that it would need all his astuteness to extract him from the same.
He rose, in order to show that he considered the interview at an end; and the Chief Rabbi, well satisfied with the work he had accomplished, took his departure with due ceremony. There was an awkward pause when the door had closed behind him, and Patricia seized the opportunity to escape from the room. Scarcely knowing whither she went, she rushed up the shallow staircase to the apartment which served as her boudoir. Her one desire was to be alone for a few minutes—anywhere away from the people she had offended. Opening the door which led into the night-nursery, she peeped timidly into the room, and seeing that her baby was alone, advanced gently towards his little cot. Although he seemed so still, he was not asleep, but lay staring up at the pattern on the wall with wide-open eyes. Hearing the rustle of her dress, however, he sat up in eager anticipation.
“Nanna just gone down’tairs,” he informed her, even before she asked him. “Baby hot.”
“Too hot to sleep?” she asked gently, and lifting him up into her arms, pushed the curls away from his forehead.
It was a relief to feel his loving little caress, to have the golden head nestling against her shoulder, to hear the piping notes of the baby voice. His very presence soothed her as no other earthly thing could have done; he seemed just like a little cherub of peace.