"He should not do so, for I am endeavouring to be kind to him. For your sake, Nina, I would treat him as though he were a Jew himself."
"He has never wronged you; I am sure that he has never wronged you."
"Nina, you are more to me than you are to him."
"Yes. I am — I am your own; but yet I will declare that he has never wronged you."
"And I should be more to you than he is."
"You are more — you are everything to me; but, still, I know that he has never wronged you."
Then the Jew paused again, still walking onwards through the dark colonnade with her hand upon his arm. They walked in silence the whole side of the large square. Nina waiting patiently to hear what would come next, and Trendellsohn considering what words he would use. He did suspect her father, and it was needful to his purpose that he should tell her so; and it was needful also, as he thought, that she should be made to understand that in her loyalty and truth to him she must give up her father, or even suspect her father, if his purpose required that she should do so. Though she were still a Christian herself, she must teach herself to look at other Christians, even at those belonging to herself, with Jewish eyes. Unless she could do so she would not be true and loyal to him with that troth and loyalty which he required. Poor Nina! It was the dearest wish of her heart to be true and loyal to him in all things; but it might be possible to put too hard a strain even upon such love as hers. "Nina," the Jew said, "I fear your father. I think that he is deceiving us."
"No, Anton, no! he is not deceiving you. My aunt and uncle and Ziska are deceiving you."
"They are trying to deceive me, no doubt; but as far as I can judge from their own words and looks, they do believe that at this moment the document which I want is in your father's house. As far as I can judge their thoughts from their words, they think that it is there."
"It is not there," said Nina, positively.