Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. III, 1876.djvu/270

the meaning of that Master who, perceiving the footsteps of his mother, rose up and said, 'The majesty of the Eternal cometh near!' And that letter was her cry from the depths of anguish and desolation—the cry of a mother robbed of her little one. I was her eldest. Death had taken four babes, one after the other. Then came late my little sister, who was more than all the rest the desire of her mother's eyes; and the letter was a piercing cry to me—'Ezra, my son, I am robbed of her. He has taken her away, and left disgrace behind. They will never come again.'"—Here Mordecai lifted his eyes suddenly, laid his hand on Deronda's arm, and said, "Mine was the lot of Israel. For the sin of the father my soul must go into exile. For the sin of the father the work was broken, and the day of fulfilment delayed. She who bore me was desolate, disgraced, destitute. I turned back. On the instant I turned—her spirit, and the spirit of her fathers, who had worthy Jewish hearts, moved within me, and drew me. God, in whom dwells the universe, was within me as the strength of obedience. I turned and travelled with hardship—to save the scant money which she would need. I left the sunshine, and travelled into freezing cold. In the last stage I spent a night in exposure to cold and snow. And that was the beginning of this slow death."