was so, but there was the
chance. There was the chance, and he could not bear to be deceived. He
felt assured that Ziska Zamenoy and Lotta Luxa believed that this deed
was in Nina's keeping. Indeed, he was assured that all the household of
the Zamenoys so believed. "If there be a God above us, it is there,"
Lotta had said, crossing herself. He did not think it was there; he
thought that Lotta was wrong, and that all the Zamenoys were wrong, by
some mistake which he could not fathom; but still there was the chance,
and Nina must be made to bear this additional calamity.

"Do you think it impossible," said he, "that you should have it among
your own things?"

"What! without knowing that I have it?" she asked.

"It may have come to you with other papers," he said, "and you may not
quite have understood its nature."

"There, in that desk, is every paper that I have in the world. You
can look if you suspect me. But I shall not easily forgive you for
looking." Then she threw down the key of her desk upon the table. He
took it up and fingered it, but did not move towards the desk. "The
greatest treasure there," she said, "are scraps of your own, which I
have been a fool to value, as they have come from a man who does not
trust me."

He knew that it would be useless for him to open the desk. If she were
secreting anything from him, she was not hiding it there. "Might it not
possibly be among your clothes?" he asked.

"I have no clothes," she answered, and then strode off across the wide
room towards the door of her father's apartment. But after she had
grasped the handle of the door, she turned again upon her lover. "It
may, however, be well that you should search my chamber and my bed. If
you will come with me, I will show you the door. You will find it to be
a sorry place for one who was your affianced bride."

"Who _is_ my affianced bride," said Trendellsohn.

"No, sir!--who was, but is so no longer. You will have to ask my
pardon, at my feet, before I will let you speak to me again as my
lover. Go and search. Look for your deed--and then you shall see that
I will tear out my own heart rather than submit to the ill-usage of
distrust from one who owes me so much faith as you do."

"Nina," he said.

"Well, sir."

"I do trust you."

"Yes--with a half trust--with one eye closed, while the other is
watching me. You think you have so conquered me that I will be good to
you, and yet cannot keep yourself from listeni