“To deceive me, perhaps.”

“No, he repents.”

“Ah yes! but too late.”

“This repentance is not of himself.”

“And who put it into him?”

“If you only knew how his friend scolded him!”

“Ah, Master Jacob; he does not leave you, then, that Master Jacob?”

“At any rate, he leaves us as little as he can help.”

Saying this, she smiled in such a way that the little cloud of jealousy which had darkened the brow of Cornelius speedily vanished.

“How was it?” asked the prisoner.