nobility is the legacy bequeathed to him by Fink."

"And you have refused to help him?" inquired Sabine, in a low voice.

"Let the dead bury their dead," said the merchant, harshly; and he
turned to his writing-table.

Sabine slowly withdrew. The taper trembled in her hand as she passed
through the long suite of rooms listening to her own footfall, and
shuddering as the feeling came over her that an invisible companion
glided by her side. This was the revenge of that other. The shadow that
once fell on her innocent life now drove her friend away from their
circle. Anton's affections clung to another. She had but been in his
eyes a mere stranger, who had once loved and languished for one now far
away, and who now, in widow's weeds, looked back regretfully to the
feelings of her youth.

The few next weeks were spent by Anton in over-hard work. He had great
difficulty in keeping up his counting-house duties, while he spent every
spare hour in conference with the baroness and the lawyer.

In the mean time, the misfortunes of the baron ran their course. He had
not been able to pay the interest of the sums with which his estate was
burdened. When last they were due, a whole series of claims was brought
against him, and the estate fell under the administration of the
district authorities. Complicated lawsuits arose. Ehrenthal complained
loudly, claiming the first mortgage of twenty thousand dollars--nay, he
was inclined to advance claims on the last mortgage offered by the baron
in the recent fatal hour. Loebel Pinkus also appeared as claimant of the
first mortgage, and asserted that he had paid the whole sum of twenty
thousand dollars. Ehrenthal had no proof to bring forward, and had been
for some weeks past quite unable to manage his own affairs, while
Pinkus, on the contrary, fought with every weapon a hardened sinner can
devise or employ, and the deeds which the baron had executed at Veitel's
suggestion proved to be so capital a master-stroke of the cunning
advocate, that the baron's man of business had, from the first, little
hope of the case. We may here observe that Pinkus did eventually win it,
and that the mortgage was made over to him.

Anton was now gradually gaining some insight into the baron's
circumstances. But the double sale of the first mortgage was still kept
a secret by the latter, even from his wife. He declared Ehrenthal's
claim unfounded, and even expressed a suspicion that he had himself had
some