With such broken, blundering words the good woman blurted out the truth,
and tried to deaden the blow of it. But the soul lives fast, and Israel
lived a lifetime in that moment.

"The palace!" he said in a bewildered way. "The women's palace--the
women's--" and then broke off shortly. "Fatimah, I want to go to Naomi,"
he said.

And Fatimah stammered, "Alas! alas! you cannot, you never can--"

"Fatimah," said Israel, with an awful calm. "Can't you see, woman,
I have come home? I and Naomi have been long parted. Do you not
understand?--I want to go to my daughter."

"Yes, yes," said Fatimah; "but you can never go to her any more. She is
in the women's apartments--"

Then a great hoarse groan came from Israel's throat.

"Poor child, it was not her fault. Listen," said Fatimah; "only listen."

But Israel would hear no more. The torrent of his fury bore down
everything before it. Fatimah's feeble protests were drowned. "Silence!"
he cried. "What need is there for words? She is in the palace!--that's
enough. The women's palace--the hareem--what more is there to say?"

Putting the fact so to his own consciousness, and seeing it grossly in
all its horror, his passion fell like a breaking in of waters. "O
God!" he cried, "my enemy casts me into prison. I lie there, rotting,
starving. I think of my little daughter left behind alone. I hasten home