"What hope there is, I will go and see. Before they are back from kirk,
I will be back; and, if there is good news, I will be glad for thee."

Not half an hour was Bram away; and yet, to the miserable girl, how
grief and fear lengthened out the moments! She tried to prepare herself
for the worst; she tried to strengthen her soul even for the message of
death. But very rarely is any grief as bad as our own terror of it. When
Bram came back, it was with a word of hope on his lips.

"I have seen," he said, "who dost thou think?--the Jew Cohen. He of all
men, he has sat by Captain Hyde's side all night; and he has dressed the
wound the English surgeon declared 'beyond mortal skill.' And he said to
me, 'Three times, in the Persian desert, I have cured wounds still
worse, and the Holy One hath given me the power of healing; and, if He
wills, the young man shall recover.' That is what he said, Katherine."

"Forever I will love the Jew. Though he fail, I will love him. So kind
he is, even to those who have not spoken well, nor done well, to him."

"So kind, also, was the son of David to all of us. Now, then, go wash
thy face, and take comfort and courage."

"Bram, leave me not."

"There is Neil. We have been companions; and his father and his mother
are old, and need me."

"Also, I need thee. All the time they will make me to feel how wicked is
Katherine Van Heemskirk!"