For two days after this Nina heard nothing from the Jews' quarter, and in her terrible distress her heart almost became softened towards the man who had so deeply offended her.

She began to tell herself, in the weariness of her sorrow, that men were different from women, and, of their nature, more suspicious; that no woman had a right to expect every virtue in her lover, and that no woman had less of such right than she herself, who had so little to give in return for all that Anton proposed to bestow upon her.

She began to think that she could forgive him, even for his suspicion, if he would only come to be forgiven.

But he came not, and it was only too plain to her that she could not be the first to go to him after what had passed between them.
And then there fell another crushing sorrow upon her.

Her father was ill--so ill that he was like to die.