y, as though feeling that she had
no longer any right to take a part in such a ceremony. But now she had
done with the Jew, and surely she might sing the vesper song. So she
stopped and sang, remembering not the less as she sang, that that which
she was about to do, if really done, would make all such singing
unavailing for her.

But then, perhaps, even yet it might not be done. Lotta's first
prediction, that the Jew would desert her, had certainly come true;
and Lotta's second prediction, that there would be nothing left for
her but to drown herself, seemed to her to be true also. She had left
the house in which her father's dead body was still lying, with this
purpose. Doubly deserted as she now was by lover and father, she could
live no longer. It might, however, be possible that that saint who was
so powerful over the waters might yet do something for her--might yet
interpose on her behalf, knowing, as he did, of course, that all idea
of marriage between her, a Christian, and her Jew lover had been
abandoned. At any rate she stood and sang the hymn, and when there
came the accustomed lull at the end of the verse, she felt in her
pocket for a coin, and, taking a piece of ten kreutzers, she stepped
quickly up to the plate and put it in. A day or two ago ten kreutzers
was an important portion of the little sum which she still had left in
hand, but now ten kreutzers could do nothing for her. It was at any
rate better that the friar should have it than that her money should
go with her down into the blackness of the river. Nevertheless she did
not give the friar all. She saw one girl whispering to another as she
stepped up to the table, and she heard her own name. "That is Nina
Balatka." And then there was an answer which she did not hear, but
which she was sure referred to the Jew. The girls looked at her with
angry eyes, and she longed to stop and explain to them that she was no
longer betrothed to the Jew. Then, perhaps, they would be gentle with
her, and she might yet hear a kind word spoken to her before she went.
But she did not speak to them. No; she would never speak to man or
woman again. What was the use of speaking now? No sympathy that she
could receive would go deep enough to give relief to such wounds as
hers.

As she dropped her piece of money into the plate her eyes met those of
the friar, and she recognised at once a man whom she had known years
ago, at the same spot and engaged in the same work. He wa