Marx lay beside the hearth, and from his crooked mouth came a strange,
snoring noise, that sounded like the last note of an organ-pipe, from
which the air is expiring.

Hours after all the others were asleep, Adam and the doctor still sat on
a sack of straw, engaged in earnest conversation.

Lopez had told his friend the story of his happiness and sorrow, closing
with the words:

"So you know who we are, and why we left our home. You are giving me
your future, together with many other things; no gift can repay you; but
first of all, it was due you that you should know my past."

Then, holding out his hand to the smith, he asked: "You are a Christian;
will you still cleave to me, after what you have heard?"

Adam silently pressed the Jew's right hand, and after remaining lost in
thought for a time, said in a hollow tone:

"If they catch you, and--Holy Virgin--if they discover.....Ruth....She
is not really a Jew's child.....have you reared her as a Jewess?"

"No; only as a good human child."

"Is she baptized?"

Lopez answered this question also in the negative. The smith shook his
head disapprovingly, but the doctor said: "She knows more about Jesus,