He had stepped aside as he spoke, and with a sweep of his arm he was
driving them all out like sheep before him, dumbfounded and with their
eyes in the dust, when suddenly there was a low cry from the inner room.

It was Ruth calling for her husband. Israel wheeled about and went in
to her hurriedly, and his enemies, by one impulse of evil instinct,
followed him and listened from the threshold.

Ruth's face was a face of fear, and her lips moved, but no voice came
from them.

And Israel said, "How is it with you, my dearest joy of my joy and pride
of my pride?"

Then Ruth lifted the babe from her bosom and said "The Lord has counted
my prayer to me as sin--look, see; the child is both dumb and blind!"

At that word Israel's heart died within him, but he muttered out of his
dry throat, "No, no, never believe it!"

"True, true, it is true," she moaned; "the child has not uttered a cry,
and its eyelids have not blinked at the light."

"Never believe it, I say!" Israel growled, and he lifted the babe in his
arms to try it.

But when he held it to the fading light of the window which opened upon
the street where the woman called the prophetess had cursed him, the
eyes of the child did not close, neither did their pupils diminish. Then