l tell you where it is, if
it suits her to do so."

"She has told me, and she knows that it is here."

"She knows nothing of the kind, and she has lied. She has lied in order
that she may rob you. Jew as you are, she will be too many for you. She
will rob you, with all her seeming simplicity."

"I trust her as I do my own soul," said Trendellsohn.

"Very well; I tell you that she, and she only, knows where these
papers are. For aught I know, she has them herself. I believe that she
has them. Ziska," said Madame Zamenoy, calling aloud--"Ziska, come
hither;" and Ziska entered the room. "Ziska, who has the title-deeds
of your uncle's houses in the Kleinseite?" Ziska hesitated a moment
without answering. "You know, if anybody does," said his mother; "tell
this man, since he is so anxious, who has got them."

"I do not know why I should tell him my cousin's secrets."

"Tell him, I say. It is well that he should know."

"Nina has them, as I believe," said Ziska, still hesitating.

"Nina has them!" said Trendellsohn.

"Yes; Nina Balatka," said Madame Zamenoy. "We tell you, to the best of
our knowledge at least. At any rate, they are not here."

"It is impossible that Nina should have them," said Trendellsohn. "How
should she have got them?"

"That is nothing to us," said Madame Zamenoy. "The whole thing is
nothing to us. You have heard all that we can tell you, and you had
better go."

"You have heard more than I would have told you myself," said Ziska,
"had I been left to my opinion."

Trendellsohn stood pausing for a moment, and then he turned to the
elder Zamenoy. "What do you say, sir? Is it true that these papers are
at the house in the Kleinseite?"

"I say nothing," said Karil Zamenoy. "It seems to me that too much has
been said already."

"A great deal too much," said the lady. "I do not know why I should
have allowed myself to be surprised into giving you any information at
all. You wish to do us the heaviest injury that one man can do another,
and I do not know why we should speak to you at all. Now you had better
go."

"Yes; you had better go," said Ziska, holding the door open, and
looking as though he were inclined to threaten. Trendellsohn paused
for a moment on the threshold, fixing his eyes full upon those of his
rival; but Ziska neither spoke nor made any further gesture, and then
the Jew left the house.

"I would have told him nothing," said the elder Zamenoy when they were
left alone.