some frightful doubt as to her truth to him--her faith, which was,
alas, alas! more firm and bright towards him than towards that heavenly
Friend whose aid would certainly suffice to bring her through all her
troubles, if only she could bring herself to trust as she asked it. But
she could trust only in him, and he doubted her! Would it not be better
to do as Rebecca said, and make the most of such contentment as might
come to her from her triumph over herself? That would be better--ten
times better than to be abandoned by him--to be deserted by her Jew
lover, because the Jew would not trust her, a Christian! On either side
there could be nothing for her but death; but there is a choice even of
deaths. If she did the thing herself, she thought that there might be
something sweet even in the sadness of her last hour--something of the
flavour of sacrifice. But should it be done by him, in that way there
lay nothing but the madness of desolation! It was her last resolve, as
she still sat at the window counting the sparrows in the yard, that she
would tell him everything, and leave it to him to decide. If he would
say that it was better for them to part, then he might go; and Rebecca
Loth might become his wife, if he so wished it.

CHAPTER XI

On one of these days old Trendellsohn went to the office of Karil
Zamenoy, in the Ross Markt, with the full determination of learning in
truth what there might be to be learned as to that deed which would
be so necessary to him, or to those who would come after him, when
Josef Balatka might die. He accused himself of having been foolishly
soft-hearted in his transactions with this Christian, and reminded
himself from time to time that no Jew in Prague would have been so
treated by any Christian. And what was the return made to him? Among
them they had now secreted that of which he should have enforced the
rendering before he had parted with his own money; and this they did
because they knew that he would be unwilling to take harsh legal
proceedings against a bed-ridden old man! In this frame of mind he went
to the Ross Markt, and there he was assured over and over again by
Ziska Zamenoy--for Karil Zamenoy was not to be seen--that Nina Balatka
had the deed in her own keeping. The name of Nina Balatka was becoming
very grievous to the old man. Even he, when the matter had first been
broached to him, had not recognised all the evils which would come from
a marriage between his s