Again some days passed by without any meeting between Nina and her lover, and things were going very badly with the Balatkas in the old house. The money that had come from the jeweller was not indeed all expended, but Nina looked upon it as her last resource, till marriage should come to relieve her; and the time of her marriage seemed to be as far from her as ever. So the kreutzers were husbanded as only a woman can husband them, and new attempts were made to reduce the little expenses of the little household.

“Souchey, you had better go. You had indeed,” said Nina. “We cannot feed you.” Now Souchey had himself spoken of leaving them some days since, urged to do so by his Christian indignation at the abominable betrothal of his mistress. “You said the other day that you would do so, and it will be better.”

“But I shall not.”

“Then you will be starved.”

“I am starved already, and it cannot be worse. I dined yesterday on what they threw out to the dogs in the meat-market.”

“And where will you dine today?”

“Ah, I shall dine better today. I shall get a meal in the Windberg-gasse.”

“What! at my aunt’s house?”

“Yes; at your aunt’s house. They live well there, even in the kitchen. Lotta will have for me some hot soup, a mess of cabbage, and a sausage. I wish I could bring it away from your aunt’s house to the old man and yourself.”

“I would sooner fall in the gutter than eat my aunt’s meat.”

“That is all very fine for you, but I am not going to marry a Jewess. Why should I quarrel with your aunt, or with Lotta Luxa? If you would give up the Jew, Nina, your aunt’s house would be open to you; yes — and Ziska’s house.”

“I will not give up the Jew,” said Nina, with flashing eyes.

“I suppose not. But what will you do when he gives you up? What if Ziska then should not be so forward?”

“Of all those who are my enemies, and whom I hate because they are so cruel, I hate Ziska the worst. Go and tell him so, since you are becoming one of them. In doing so much you cannot at any rate do me harm.”

Then she took herself off, forgetting in her angry spirit the prudential motives which had induced her to begin the conversation with Souchey. But Souchey, though he was going to Madame Zamenoy’s house to get his dinner, and was looking forward with much eagerness to the mess of hot cabbage and the cold sausage, had by no means become “one of them” in the Windberg-gasse. He had had more than one interview of late with Lotta Luxa, and had perceived that something was going on, of which he much desired to be at the bottom. Lotta had some scheme, which she was half willing and half unwilling to reveal to him, by which she hoped to prevent the threatened marriage between Nina and the Jew. Now Souchey was well enough inclined to take a part in such a scheme — provided it did not in any way make him a party with the Zamenoys in things general against the Balatkas. It was his duty as a Christian — though he himself was rather slack in the performance of his own religious duties — to put a stop to this horrible marriage if he could do so; but it behoved him to be true to his master and mistress, and especially true to them in opposition to the Zamenoys. He had in some sort been carrying on a losing battle against the Zamenoys all his life, and had some of the feelings of a martyr, telling himself that he had lost a rich wife by doing so. He would go on this occasion and eat his dinner and be very confidential with Lotta; but he would be very discreet, would learn more than he told, and, above all, would not betray his master or mistress.

Soon after he was gone, Anton Trendellsohn came over to the Kleinseite, and, ringing at the bell of the house, received admission from Nina herself. “What! you, Anton?” she said, almost jumping into his arms, and then restraining herself. “Will you come up? It is so long since I have seen you.”

“Yes — it is long. I hope the time is soon coming when there shall be no more of such separation.”

“Is it? Is it indeed?”

“I trust it is.”

“I suppose as a maiden I ought to be coy, and say that I would prefer to wait; but, dearest love, sorrow and trouble have banished all that. You will not love me less because I tell you that I count the minutes till I may be your wife.”

“No; I do not love you less on that account. I would have you be true and faithful in all things.”

Though the words themselves were assuring, there was something in the tone of his voice which repressed her. “To you I am true and faithful in all things; as faithful as though you were already my husband. What were you saying of a time that is soon coming?”

He did not answer her question, but turned the subject away into another channel. “I have brought something for you,” he said — something which I hope you will be glad to have.”

“Is it a present? she asked. As yet he had never given her anything that she could call a gift, and it was to her almost a matter of pride that she had taken nothing from her Jew lover, and that she would take nothing till it should be her right to take everything.

“Hardly a present; but you shall look at it as you will. You remember Rapinsky, do you not?” Now Rapinsky was the jeweller in the Grosser Ring, and Nina, though she well remembered the man and the shop, did not at the moment remember the name. “You will not have forgotten this at any rate,” said Trendellsohn, bringing the necklace from out of his pocket.

“How did you get it?” said Nina, not putting out her hand to take it, but looking at it as it lay upon the table.

“I thought you would be glad to have it back again.”

“I should be glad if —”

“If what?” Will it be less welcome because it comes through my hands?”

“The man lent me money upon it, and you must have paid the money.”

“What if I have? I like your pride, Nina; but be not too proud. Of course I have paid the money. I know Rapinsky, who deals with us often. I went to him after you spoke to me, and got it back again. There is your mother’s necklace.”

“I am sorry for this, Anton.”

“Why sorry?”

“We are so poor that I shall be driven to take it elsewhere again. I cannot keep such a thing in the house while father wants. But better he should want than —”

“Than what, Nina?”

“There would be something like cheating in borrowing money on the same thing twice.”

“Then put it by, and I will be your lender.”

“No; I will not borrow from you. You are the only one in the world that I could never repay. I cannot borrow from you. Keep this thing, and if I am ever your wife, then you shall give it me.”

“If you are ever my wife?”

“Is there no room for such an if? I hope there is not, Anton. I wish it were as certain as the sun’s rising. But people around us are so cruel! It seems, sometimes, as though the world were against us. And then you, yourself —”

“What of me myself, Nina?”

“I do not think you trust me altogether; and unless you trust me, I know you will not make me your wife.”

“That is certain; and yet I do not doubt that you will be my wife.”

“But do you trust me? Do you believe in your heart of hearts that I know nothing of that paper for which you are searching?” She paused for a reply, but he did not at once make any. “Tell me,” she went on saying, with energy, “are you sure that I am true to you in that matter, as in all others? Though I were starving — and it is nearly so with me already — and though I loved you beyond even all heaven, as I do, I do — I would not become your wife if you doubted me in any tittle. Say that you doubt me, and then it shall be all over.” Still he did not speak. “Rebecca Loth will be a fitter wife for you than I can be,” said Nina.

“If you are not my wife, I shall never have a wife,” said Trendellsohn.

In her ecstasy of delight, as she heard these words, she took up his hand and kissed it; but she dropped it again, as she remembered that she had not yet received the assurance that she needed. “But you do believe me about this horrid paper?”

It was necessary that she should be made to go again through the fire. In deliberate reflection he had made himself aware that such necessity still existed. It might be that she had some inner reserve as to duty towards her father. There was, possibly, some reason which he could not fathom why she should still keep something back from him in this matter. He did not, in truth, think that it 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 listening to those who whisper that I am bad to you. Sir, I fear they have been right when they told me that a Jew’s nature would surely shock me at last.”

The dark frowning cloud, which she had so often observed with fear, came upon his brow; but she did not fear him now. “And do you too taunt me with my religion?” he said.

“No, not so — not with your religion, Anton; but with your nature.”

“And how can I help my nature?”

“I suppose you cannot help it, and I am wrong to taunt you. I should not have taunted you. I should only have said that I will not endure the suspicion either of a Christian or of a Jew.”

He came up to her now, and put out his arm as though he were about to embrace her. “No,” she said; “not again, till you have asked my pardon for distrusting me, and have given me your solemn word that you distrust me no longer.”

He paused a moment in doubt, then put his hat on his head and prepared to leave her. She had behaved very well, but still he would not be weak enough to yield to her in everything at once. As to opening her desk, or going up-stairs into her room, that he felt to be quite impossible. Even his nature did not admit of that. But neither did his nature allow him to ask her pardon and to own that he had been wrong. She had said that he must implore her forgiveness at her feet. One word, however, one look, would have sufficed. But that word and that look were, at the present moment, out of his power. “Good-bye, Nina,” he said. &l............