thing," said Nina. "They may say, if they like,
that I am no Christian."

"But how will it be with him? Can you ever be happy if you have been
the cause of ruin to your husband?"

Nina was again silent for a while, sitting with her face turned
altogether away from the Jewess. Then she rose suddenly from her
chair, and, facing round almost fiercely upon the other girl, asked
a question, which came from the fulness of her heart, "And you--you
yourself, what is it that you intend to do? Do you wish to marry him?"

"I do," said Rebecca, bearing Nina's gaze without dropping her own eyes
for a moment. "I do. I do wish to be the wife of Anton Trendellsohn."

"Then you shall never have your wish--never. He loves me, and me only.
Ask him, and he will tell you so."

"I have asked him, and he has told me so." There was something so
serious, so sad, and so determined in the manner of the young Jewess,
that it almost cowed Nina--almost drove her to yield before her
visitor. "If he has told you so," she said--then she stopped, not
wishing to triumph over her rival.

"He has told me so; but I knew it without his telling. We all know it.
I have not come here to deceive you, or to create false suspicions. He
does love you. He cares nothing for me, and he does love you. But is he
therefore to be ruined? Which had he better lose? All that he has in
the world, or the girl that has taken his fancy?"

"I would sooner lose the world twice over than lose him."

"Yes; but you are only a woman. Think of his position. There is not a
Jew in all Prague respected among us as he is respected. He knows more,
can do more, has more of wit and cleverness, than any of us. We look to
him to win for the Jews in Prague something of the freedom which Jews
have elsewhere--in Paris and in London. If he takes a Christian for his
wife, all this will be destroyed."

"But all will be well if he were to marry you!"

Now it was Rebecca's turn to pause; but it was not for long. "I love
him dearly," she said; "with a love as warm as yours."

"And therefore I am to be untrue to him," said Nina, again seating
herself.

"And were I to become his wife," continued Rebecca, not regarding the
interruption, "it would be well with him in a worldly point of view.
All our people would be glad, because there has been friendship between
the families from of old. His father would be pleased, and he would
become rich; and I also am not without some wealth of my own."