and had gone
home, fully believing that the deed was in Nina's hands.

"Yes, it is so--she is deceiving you," he said to his son that evening.

"No father. I think not."

"Very well. You will find, when it is too late, that my words are true.
Have you ever known a Christian who thought it wrong to rob a Jew?"

"I do not believe that Nina would rob me."

"Ah! that is the confidence of what you call love. She is honest, you
think, because she has a pretty face."

"She is honest, I think, because she loves me."

"Bah! Does love make men honest, or women either? Do we not see every
day how these Christians rob each other in their money dealings when
they are marrying? What was the girl's name?--old Thibolski's daughter
--how they robbed her when they married her, and how her people tried
their best to rob the lad she married. Did we not see it all?"

"It was not the girl who did it--not the girl herself."

"Why should a woman be honester than a man? I tell you, Anton, that
this girl has the deed."

"Ziska Zamenoy has told you so?"

"Yes, he has told me. But I am not a man to be deceived because such a
one as Ziska wishes to deceive me. You, at least, know me better than
that. That which I tell you, Ziska himself believes."

"But Ziska may believe wrongly."

"Why should he do so? Whose interest can it be to make this thing seem
so, if it be not so? If the girl have the deed, you can get it more
readily from her than from the Zamenoys. Believe me, Anton, the deed is
with the girl."

"If it be so, I shall never believe again in the truth of a human
being," said the son.

"Believe in the truth of your own people," said the father. "Why should
you seek to be wiser than them all?"

The father did not convince the son, but the words which he had spoken
helped to create a doubt which already had almost an existence of its
own. Anton Trendellsohn was prone to suspicions, and now was beginning
to suspect Nina, although he strove hard to keep his mind free from
such taint. His better nature told him that it was impossible that she
should deceive him. He had read the very inside of her heart, and knew
that her only delight was in his love. He understood perfectly the
weakness and faith and beauty of her feminine nature, and her trusting,
leaning softness was to his harder spirit as water to a thirsting
man in the desert. When she clung to him, promising to obey him in
everything, the touch of her hands, and the soun