All courage went out of the man, his fiery eyes grew tame, he appeared to become visibly smaller, and to put on something of the air of those mendicants of his own race, who whine out their woes and beg alms of the passer-by.

When next he spoke, it was as a suppliant for merciful judgment at the hands of his own child and her lover.
"Judge me not harshly," he said.

"Think what it is to be a Jew--an outcast, a thing that the lowest may spurn and spit at, one beyond the law, one who can be hunted from land to land like a mad wolf, and tortured to death, when caught, for the sport of gentle Christians, who first have stripped him of his gains and very garments.

And then think what it means to escape all these woes and terrors, and, by the doffing of a bonnet, and the mumbling of certain prayers with the lips in public, to find sanctuary, peace, and protection within the walls of Mother Church, and thus fostered, to grow rich and great." He paused as though for a reply, but as they did not speak, went on: "Moreover, as a child, I was baptized into your Church; but my heart, like that of my father, remained with the Jews, and where the heart goes the feet follow." "That makes it worse," said Peter, as though speaking to himself.
"My father taught me thus," Castell went on, as though pleading his case before a court of law.
"We must answer for our own sins," said Peter again.
Then at length Castell took fire.
"You young folk, who as yet know little of the terrors of the world, reproach me with cold looks and colder words," he said; "but I wonder, should you ever come to such a pass as mine, whether you will find the heart to meet it half as bravely?
Why do you think that I have told you this secret, that I might have kept from you as I kept it from your mother, Margaret?
I say because it is a part of my penance for the sin which I have sinned.

Aye, I know well that my God is a jealous God, and that this sin will fall back on my head, and that I shall pay its price to the last groat, though when and how the blow will strike me I know not.