In the evening she accompanied her father to Shool.  She did not often go in the evening, and the thought of going only suddenly occurred to her.  Heaven alone knew if she would ever enter a synagogue again—­the visit would be part of her systematic farewell.  Reb Shemuel took it as a symptom of resignation to the will of God, and he laid his hand lightly on her head in silent blessing, his eyes uplifted gratefully to Heaven.  Too late Hannah felt the misconception and was remorseful.  For the festival occasion Reb Shemuel elected to worship at the Great Synagogue; Hannah, seated among the sparse occupants of the Ladies’ Gallery and mechanically fingering a Machzor, looked down for the last time on the crowded auditorium where the men sat in high hats and holiday garments.  Tall wax-candles twinkled everywhere, in great gilt chandeliers depending from the ceiling, in sconces stuck about the window ledges, in candelabra branching from the walls.  There was an air of holy joy about the solemn old structure with its massive pillars, its small side-windows, high ornate roof, and skylights, and its gilt-lettered tablets to the memory of pious donors.

The congregation gave the responses with joyous unction.  Some of the worshippers tempered their devotion by petty gossip and the beadle marshalled the men in low hats within the iron railings, sonorously sounding his automatic amens.  But to-night Hannah had no eye for the humors that were wont to awaken her scornful amusement—­a real emotion possessed her, the same emotion of farewell which she had experienced in her own bedroom.  Her eyes wandered towards the Ark, surmounted by the stone tablets of the Decalogue, and the sad dark orbs filled with the brooding light of childish reminiscence.  Once when she was a little girl her father told her that on Passover night an angel sometimes came out of the doors of the Ark from among the scrolls of the Law.  For years she looked out for that angel, keeping her eyes patiently fixed on the curtain.  At last she gave him up, concluding her vision was insufficiently purified or that he was exhibiting at other synagogues.  To-night her childish fancy recurred to her—­she found herself involuntarily looking towards the Ark and half-expectant of the angel.

She had not thought of the Seder service she would have to partially sit through, when she made her appointment with David in the morning, but when during the day it occurred to her, a cynical smile traversed her lips.  How apposite it was!  To-night would mark her exodus from slavery.  Like her ancestors leaving Egypt, she, too, would partake of a meal in haste, staff in hand ready for the journey.  With what stout heart would she set forth, she, too, towards the promised land!  Thus had she thought some hours since, but her mood was changed now.  The nearer the Seder approached, the more she shrank from the family ceremonial.  A panic terror almost seized her now, in the synagogue, when the picture