"I spoke to her for five minutes, uncle; that was all." "Did you do your lessons with Madame Pulsky?" "Yes, I did, uncle--of course. You know that." "I know that it is a pity you should not be better looked after." "Bring Nina home here and she will look after me." "Go to bed, miss--at once, do you hear?" Then Ruth went off to her bed, wondering at Nina's choice, and declaring to herself, that if ever she took in hand a lover at all, he should be a lover very different from her uncle, Anton Trendellsohn. CHAPTER V The more Madame Zamenoy thought of the terrible tidings which had reached her, the more determined did she become to prevent the degradation of the connection with which she was threatened. She declared to her husband and son that all Prague were already talking of the horror, forgetting, perhaps, that any knowledge which Prague had on the subject must have come from herself. She had, indeed, consulted various persons on the subject in the strictest confidence. We have already seen that she had told Lotta Luxa and her son, and she had, of course, complained frequently on the matter to her husband. She had unbosomed herself to one or two trusty female friends who lived near her, and she had applied for advice and assistance to two priests. To Father Jerome she had gone as Nina's confessor, and she had also applied to the reverend pastor who had the charge of her own little peccadilloes. The small amount of assistance which her clerical allies offered to her had surprised her very much. She had, indeed, gone so far as to declare to Lotta that she was shocked by their indifference. Her own confessor had simply told her that the matter was in the hands of Father Jerome, as far as it could be said to belong to the Church at all; and had satisfied his conscience by advising his dear friend to use all the resources which female persecution put at her command. "You will frighten her out of it, Madame Zamenoy, if you go the right way about it," said the priest. Madame Zamenoy was well inclined to go the right way about it, if she only knew how. She would make Nina's life a burden to her if she could only get hold of the girl, and would scruple at no threats as to this world or the next. But she thought that her priest ought to have done more for her in such a crisis than simply giving her such ordinary counsel. Things were not as they used to be, she knew; but there was even yet something of the prestige of power left to the Church, and there were convents with locks and bars, and excommunication might still be made terrible, and public opinion, in the shape of outside persecution, might, as Madame Zamenoy thought, have been brought to bear. Nor did she get much more comfort from Father Jerome. His reliance was placed chiefly on operations to be carried on with the Jew; and, failing them, on the opposition which the Jew would experience among his own people. "They think more of it than we do," said Father Jerome.