He stooped down--she drew the bedclothes frenziedly over her face.
"Kiss me not!"
"Good-bye, then," he stammered. "God be good to thee!" He moved away.
"Herzel!" She had uncovered her face with a despairing cry. He
slouched back toward her, perturbed, dreading she would retract.
"Do not send it--bring it thyself. Let me take it from thy hand."
A lump rose in his throat. "I will bring it," he said brokenly.
The long days of pain grew longer--the summer was coming, harbingered
by sunny days that flooded the wards with golden mockery. The evening
Herzel brought the _Get_, Sarah could have read every word on the
parchment plainly, if her eyes had not been blinded by tears.
She put out her hand toward her husband, groping for the document he
bore. He placed it in her burning palm. The fingers closed
automatically upon it, then relaxed, and the paper fluttered to the
floor. But Sarah was no longer a wife.
Herzel was glad to hide his burning face by stooping for the fallen
bill of divorcement. He was long picking it up. When his eyes met hers
again, she had propped herself up in her bed. Two big round tears
trickled down her cheeks, but she received the parchment calmly and
thrust it into her bosom.
"Let it lie there," she said stonily, "there where thy head hath lain.
Blessed be the true Judge."
"Thou art not angry with me, Sarah?"
"Why should I be angry? She was right--I am but a dead woman. Only no
one may say _Kaddish_ for me, no one may pray for the repose of my
soul. I am not angry, Herzel. A wife should light the Sabbath candles,
and throw in the fire the morsel of dough. But thy home was desolate,
there was none to do these things. Here I have all I need. Now thou
wilt be happy, too."
"Thou hast been a good wife, Sarah," he murmured, touched.
"Recall not the past; we are strangers now," she said, with recurrent
harshness.
"But I may come and see thee--sometimes." He had stirrings of remorse
as the moment of final parting came.
"Wouldst thou reopen my wounds?"
"Farewell, then."
He put out his hand timidly; she seized it and held it passionately.
"Yes, yes, Herzel! Do not leave me! Come and see me here--as a friend,
an acquaintance, a man I used to know. The others are thoughtless--they
forget me--I shall lie here--perhaps the Angel of Death will forget me,
too." Her grasp tightened till it hurt him acutely.
"Yes, I will come--I will come often," he said, with a sob of physical
pain.
Her clasp loosened, she dropped his hand.
"But not till thou art married," she said.
"Be it so."
"Of course thou must have a 'still wedding.' The English synagogue
will not marry thee."
"The Maggid will marry me."
"Thou wilt show me her _Cesubah_ when thou comest next?"
"Yes--I will contrive to get it from her."
A week passed--he brought the marriage certificate.
Outwardly she was calm. She glanced through it. "God be thanked," she
said, and handed it back. They chatted of indifferent things, of the
doings of the neighbours. When he was going, she said, "Thou wilt come
again?"
"Yes, I will come again."
"Thou art so good to spend thy time on me thus. But thy wife--will she
not be jealous?"
He stared, bewildered by her strange, eerie moments.
"Jealous of thee?" he murmured.
She took it in its contemptuous sense and her white lips twitched. But
she only said, "Is she aware thou hast come here?"