“We part then thus?” said the Templar, after a short pause; “would to Heaven that we had never met, or that thou hadst been noble in birth and Christian in faith!⁠—Nay, by Heaven! when I gaze on thee, and think when and how we are next to meet, I could even wish myself one of thine own degraded nation; my hand conversant with ingots and shekels, instead of spear and shield; my head bent down before each petty noble, and my look only terrible to the shivering and bankrupt debtor⁠—this could I wish, Rebecca, to be near to thee in life, and to escape the fearful share I must have in thy death.”