"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. "It is best that I should leave you now." "By far the best; and you will take the necklace with you, if you please." "No; I will leave that. I cannot keep a trinket that was your mother's." "Take it, then, to the jeweller's, and get back your money. It shall not be left here. I will have nothing from your hands." He was so far cowed by her manner that he took up the necklace and left the house, and Nina was once more alone.