of the domestic interior flashed again before her mental vision—­she felt like flying into the street, on towards her lover without ever looking behind.  Oh, why could David not have fixed the hour earlier, so as to spare her an ordeal so trying to the nerves?  The black-stoled choir was singing sweetly, Hannah banished her foolish flutter of alarm by joining in quietly, for congregational singing was regarded rather as an intrusion on the privileges of the choir and calculated to put them out in their elaborate four-part fugues unaided by an organ.

“With everlasting love hast Thou loved the house of Israel, Thy people,” she sang:  “a Law and commandments, statutes and judgments hast thou taught us.  Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up we will meditate on Thy statutes:  yea, we will rejoice in the words of Thy Law and in Thy commandments for ever, for they are our life and the length of our days, and will meditate on them day and night.  And mayest Thou never take away Thy love from us.  Blessed art Thou.  O Lord, who lovest Thy people Israel.”

Hannah scanned the English version of the Hebrew in her Machzor as she sang.  Though she could translate every word, the meaning of what she sang was never completely conceived by her consciousness.  The power of song over the soul depends but little on the words.  Now the words seem fateful, pregnant with special message.  Her eyes were misty when the fugues were over.  Again she looked towards the Ark with its beautifully embroidered curtain, behind which were the precious scrolls with their silken swathes and their golden bells and shields and pomegranates.  Ah, if the angel would come out now!  If only the dazzling vision gleamed for a moment on the white steps.  Oh, why did he not come and save her?

Save her?  From what?  She asked herself the question fiercely, in defiance of the still, small voice.  What wrong had she ever done that she so young and gentle should be forced to make so cruel a choice between the old and the new?  This was the synagogue she should have been married in; stepping gloriously and honorably under the canopy, amid the pleasant excitement of a congratulatory company.  And now she was being driven to exile and the chillness of secret nuptials.  No, no; she did not want to be saved in the sense of being kept in the fold:  it was the creed that was culpable, not she.

The service drew to an end.  The choir sang the final hymn, the Chasan giving the last verse at great length and with many musical flourishes.

“The dead will God quicken in the abundance of His loving kindness.  Blessed for evermore be His glorious name.”

There was a clattering of reading-flaps and seat-lids and the congregation poured out, amid the buzz of mutual “Good Yomtovs." Hannah rejoined her father, the sense of injury and revolt still surging in her breast.  In the fresh starlit air, stepping along the wet gleaming pavements, she shook off the last influences of the synagogue; all her thoughts converged on the meeting with David, on the wild flight northwards while good Jews were sleeping off the supper in celebration of their Redemption; her blood coursed quickly through her veins, she was in a fever of impatience for the hour to come.