to me like that."

"But was I not a fool? See how it is now. Were you and I to become man
and wife, they would never give them up, though they are my own--my
own. No; we must wait; and you--you must demand them from your uncle."

"I will demand them. And as for waiting, I care nothing for that if you
love me."

"I do love you."

"Then all shall be well with me; and I will ask for the papers. Father,
I know, wishes that you should have all that is your own. He would
leave the house to-morrow if you desired it."

"He is welcome to remain there."

"And now, Anton, good-night."

"Good-night, Nina."

"When shall I see you again?"

"When you please, and as often. Have I not said that you are light
and heat to me? Can the sun rise too often for those who love it?"
Then she held her hand up to be kissed, and kissed his in return, and
went silently down the stairs into the street. He had said once in
the course of the conversation--nay, twice, as she came to remember
in thinking over it--that she might do as she would about telling
her friends; and she had been almost craftily careful to say nothing
herself, and to draw nothing from him, which could be held as
militating against this authority, or as subsequently negativing the
permission so given. She would undoubtedly tell her father--and her
aunt; and would as certainly demand from her uncle those documents of
which Anton Trendellsohn had spoken to her.

CHAPTER II

Nina, as she returned home from the Jews' quarter to her father's
house in the Kleinseite, paused for a while on the bridge to make some
resolution--some resolution that should be fixed--as to her immediate
conduct. Should she first tell her story to her father, or first to her
aunt Sophie? There were reasons for and against either plan. And if to
her father first, then should she tell it to-night? She was nervously
anxious to rush at once at her difficulties, and to be known to all
who belonged to her as the girl who had given herself to the Jew. It
was now late in the evening, and the moon was shining brightly on the
palace over against her. The colonnades seemed to be so close to her
that there could hardly be room for any portion of the city to cluster
itself between them and the river. She stood looking up at the great
building, and fell again into her trick of counting the windows,
thereby saving herself a while from the difficult task of following out
the train of her thoughts. But wh