the rent of the other houses," said Balatka.

"Yes; but if the papers are his, he ought to have them."

"Did he send for them?"

"No, father; he did not send."

"And what made you go?"

"I am so of often going there. He had spoken to me before about this.
He thinks you do not like him to come here, and you never go there
yourself."

After this there was a pause for a few minutes, and Nina was settling
herself to her work. Then the old man spoke again.

"Nina, I fear you see too much of Anton Trendellsohn." The words were
the very words of Souchey; and Nina was sure that her father and the
servant had been discussing her conduct. It was no more than she had
expected, but her father's words had come very quickly upon Souchey's
speech to herself. What did it signify? Everybody would know it all
before twenty-four hours had passed by. Nina, however, was determined
to defend herself at the present moment, thinking that there was
something of injustice in her father's remarks. "As for seeing him
often, father, I have done it because your business has required it.
When you were ill in April I had to be there almost daily."

"But you need not have gone to-night. He did not send for you."

"But it is needful that something should be done to get for him that
which is his own." As she said this there came to her a sting of
conscience, a thought that reminded her that, though she was not lying
to her father in words, she was in fact deceiving him; and remembering
her assertion to her lover that she had never spoken falsely to her
father, she blushed with shame as she sat in the darkness of her seat.

"To-morrow father," she said, "I will talk to you more about this, and
you shall not at any rate say that I keep anything from you."

"I have never said so, Nina."

"It is late now, father. Will you not go to bed?"

Old Balatka yielded to this suggestion, and went to his bed; and Nina,
after some hour or two, went to hers. But before doing so she opened
the little desk that stood in the corner of their sitting-room, of
which the key was always in her pocket, and took out everything that it
contained. There were many letters there, of which most were on matters
of business--letters which in few houses would come into the hands of
such a one as Nina Balatka, but which, through the weakness of her
father's health, had come into hers. Many of these she now read; some
few she tore and burned in the stove, and others she tied