For two days after this Nina heard nothing from the Jews’ quarter, and in her terrible distress¹ her heart almost became softened² towards the man who had so deeply offended her. She began to tell herself, in the weariness of her sorrow, that men were different from women, and, of their nature, more suspicious; that no woman had a right to expect every virtue³ in her lover, and that no woman had less of such right than she herself, who had so little to give in return for all that Anton proposed to bestow⁴ upon her. She began to think that she could forgive him, even for his suspicion, if he would only come to be forgiven. But he came not, and it was only too plain to her that she could not be the first to go to him after what had passed between them. And then there fell another crushing sorrow upon her. Her father was ill — so ill that he was like to die. The doctor came to him — some son of Galen who had known the merchant in his prosperity — and, with kind assurances, told Nina that her father, though he could pay nothing, should have whatever assistance medical attention could give him; but he said, at the same time, that medical attention could give no aid that would be of permanent service. The light had burned down in the socket⁵, and must go out. The doctor took Nina by the hand, and put his own hand upon her soft tresses, and spoke⁶ kind words to console her. And then he said that the sick man ought to take a few glasses of wine every day; and as he was going away, turned back again, and promised to send the wine from his own house. Nina thanked him, and plucked up something of her old spirit during his presence, and spoke to him as though she had no other care than that of her father’s health; but as soon as the doctor was gone she thought again of her Jew lover. That her father should die was a great grief. But when she should be alone in the old house, with the corpse⁷ lying on the bed, would Anton Trendellsohn come to her then?

He did not come to her now, though he knew of her father’s illness. She sent Souchey to the Jews’ quarter to tell the sad news — not to him, but to old Trendellsohn. “For the sake of the property it is right that he should know,” Nina said to herself, excusing to herself on this plea her weakness in sending any message to the house of Anton Trendellsohn till he should have come and asked her pardon. But even after this he came not. She listened to every footstep that entered the courtyard. She could not keep herself from going to the window, and from looking into the square. Surely now, in her deep sorrow, in her

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