“Bois-Guilbert,” answered the Jewess, “thou knowest not the heart of woman, or hast only conversed with those who are lost to her best feelings. I tell thee, proud Templar, that not in thy fiercest battles hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage, than has been shown by woman when called upon to suffer by affection or duty. I am myself a woman, tenderly nurtured, naturally fearful of danger, and impatient of pain⁠—yet, when we enter those fatal lists, thou to fight and I to suffer, I feel the strong assurance within me, that my courage shall mount higher than thine. Farewell⁠—I waste no more words on thee; the time that remains on earth to the daughter of Jacob must be otherwise spent⁠—she must seek the Comforter, who may hide his face from his people, but who ever opens his ear to the cry of those who seek him in sincerity and in truth.”

“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.”