approached the pitiful, rattled loudly his wooden clappers, wailing out:
"Unclean! Unclean!"

It was the leper Berias, whose hopeless tale of awful days was almost
done. Zia himself had sometimes limped up the hillside and laid some of
his own poor food upon a stone near his cave so that he might find it.
One day he had also taken a branch of almond-blossom in full flower, and
had laid it by the food. And when he had gone away and stood at some
distance watching to see the poor ghost come forth to take what he had
given, he had seen him first clutch at the blossoming branch and fall
upon his face, holding it to his breast, a white, bound, shapeless
thing, sobbing, and uttering hoarse, croaking, unhuman cries. No
almsgiver but Zia had ever dreamed of bringing a flower to him who was
forever cut off from all bloom and loveliness.

It was this white, shuddering creature that Zia remembered with the sick
chill of horror when he saw the spots.

"Unclean! Unclean!" he heard the cracked voice cry to the sound of the
wooden clappers. "Unclean! Unclean!"

Judith was standing at the door of her hovel one morning when Zia was
going forth for the day. He had fearfully been aware that for days she
had been watching him as he had never known her to watch him before.
This morning she had followed him to the door, and had held him there a
few moments in the light with some harsh speech, keeping her eyes fixed
on him the while.

Even as they so stood there fell upon the clear air of the morning a
hollow, far-off sound--the sound of wooden clappers rattled together,