"It is impossible that Nina should have them," said Trendellsohn. "How should she have got them?" "That is nothing to us," said Madame Zamenoy. "The whole thing is nothing to us. You have heard all that we can tell you, and you had better go." "You have heard more than I would have told you myself," said Ziska, "had I been left to my opinion." Trendellsohn stood pausing for a moment, and then he turned to the elder Zamenoy. "What do you say, sir? Is it true that these papers are at the house in the Kleinseite?" "I say nothing," said Karil Zamenoy. "It seems to me that too much has been said already." "A great deal too much," said the lady. "I do not know why I should have allowed myself to be surprised into giving you any information at all. You wish to do us the heaviest injury that one man can do another, and I do not know why we should speak to you at all. Now you had better go." "Yes; you had better go," said Ziska, holding the door open, and looking as though he were inclined to threaten. Trendellsohn paused for a moment on the threshold, fixing his eyes full upon those of his rival; but Ziska neither spoke nor made any further gesture, and then the Jew left the house. "I would have told him nothing," said the elder Zamenoy when they were left alone. "My dear, you don't understand; indeed you do not," said his wife. "No stone should be left unturned to prevent such a horrid marriage as this. There is nothing I would not say--nothing I would not do." "But I do not see that you are doing anything." "Leave this little thing to me, my dear--to me and Ziska. It is impossible that you should do everything yourself. In such a matter as this, believe me that a woman is best." "But I hate anything that is really dishonest." "There shall be no dishonesty--none in the world. You don't suppose that I want to get the dirty old tumble-down houses. God forbid! But you would not give up everything to a Jew! Oh, I hate them! I do hate them! Anything is fair against a Jew." If such was Madame Zamenoy's ordinary doctrine, it may well be understood that she would scruple at using no weapon against a Jew who was meditating so great an injury against her as this marriage with her niece. After this little discussion old Zamenoy said no more, and Madame Zamenoy went home to the Windberg-gasse.