he refolded it, and placed it on the table, and
stood there with his hand upon it.

"This," said he, "is the paper for which I am looking. Souchey, at any
rate, is not a liar.

"How came it there?" said Nina, almost screaming in her agony.

"That I know not; but Souchey is not a liar; nor were your aunt and her
servant liars in telling me that I should find it in your hands."

"Anton," she said, "as the Lord made me, I knew not of it;" and she
fell on her knees before his feet.

He looked down upon her, scanning every feature of her face and every
gesture of her body with hard inquiring eyes. He did not stoop to raise
her, nor, at the moment, did he say a word to comfort her. "And you
think that I stole it and put it there?" she said. She did not quail
before his eyes, but seemed, though kneeling before him, to look up
at him as though she would defy him. When first she had sunk upon the
ground, she had been weak, and wanted pardon though she was ignorant
of all offence; but his hardness, as he stood with his eyes fixed upon
her, had hardened her, and all her intellect, though not her heart,
was in revolt against him. "You think that I have robbed you?"

"I do not know what to think," he said.

Then she rose slowly to her feet, and, collecting the papers which he
had strewed upon the table, put them back slowly into the desk, and
locked it.

"You have done with this now," she said, holding the key in her hand.

"Yes; I do not want the key again."

"And you have done with me also?"

He paused a moment or two to collect his thoughts, and then he answered
her. "Nina, I would wish to think about this before I speak of it more
fully. What step I may next take I cannot say without considering it
much. I would not wish to pain you if I could help it."

"Tell me at once what it is that you believe of me?"

"I cannot tell you at once. Rebecca Loth is friendly to you, and I will
send her to you to-morrow."

"I will not see Rebecca Loth," said Nina. "Hush! there is father's
voice. Anton, I have nothing more to say to you--nothing--nothing."
Then she left him, and went into her father's room.

For some minutes she was busy by her father's bed, and went about her
work with a determined alacrity, as though she would wipe out of her
mind altogether, for the moment, any thought about her love and the Jew
and the document that had been found in her desk; and for a while she
was successful, with a consciousness, indeed,