"She is honest, I think, because she loves me."
"Bah! Does love make men honest, or women either? Do we not see every day how these Christians rob each other in their money dealings when they are marrying? What was the girl's name? — old Thibolski's daughter — how they robbed her when they married her, and how her people tried their best to rob the lad she married. Did we not see it all?"
"It was not the girl who did it — not the girl herself."
"Why should a woman be honester than a man? I tell you, Anton, that this girl has the deed."
"Ziska Zamenoy has told you so?"
"Yes, he has told me. But I am not a man to be deceived because such a one as Ziska wishes to deceive me. You, at least, know me better than that. That which I tell you, Ziska himself believes."
"But Ziska may believe wrongly."
"Why should he do so? Whose interest can it be to make this thing seem so, if it be not so? If the girl have the deed, you can get it more readily from her than from the Zamenoys. Believe me, Anton, the deed is with the girl."
"If it be so, I shall never believe again in the truth of a human being," said the son.
"Believe in the truth of your own people," said the father. "Why should you seek to be wiser than them all?"