He made no answer to this, but moved the papers one by one carefully till he came to a folded document larger than the others. Why dwell upon it? Of course it was the deed for which he was searching. Nina, when from her station by the wall she saw that there was something in her lover's hands of which she had no knowledge — something which had been in her own desk without her privity — came forward a step or two, looking with all her eyes. But she did not speak till he had spoken; nor did he speak at once. He slowly unfolded the document, and perused the heading of it; then he refolded it, and placed it on the table, and stood there with his hand upon it.
"This," said he, "is the paper for which I am looking. Souchey, at any rate, is not a liar.
"How came it there?" said Nina, almost screaming in her agony.
"That I know not; but Souchey is not a liar; nor were your aunt and her servant liars in telling me that I should find it in your hands."
"Anton," she said, "as the Lord made me, I knew not of it;" and she fell on her knees before his feet.
He looked down upon her, scanning every feature of her face and every gesture of her body with hard inquiring eyes. He did not stoop to raise her, nor, at the moment, did he say a word to comfort her. "And you think that I stole it and put it there?" she said. She did not quail before his eyes, but seemed, though kneeling before him, to look up at him as though she would defy him. When first she had sunk upon the ground, she had been weak, and wanted pardon though she was ignorant of all offence; but his hardness, as he stood with his eyes fixed upon her, had hardened her, and all her intellect, though not her heart, was in revolt against him. "You think that I have robbed you?"
"I do not know what to think," he said.
Then she rose slowly to her feet, and, collecting the papers which he had strewed upon the table, put them back slowly into the desk, and locked it.
"You have done with this now," she said, holding the key in her hand.
"Yes; I do not want the key again."