alance of my
indebtedness to you."[1]

"It is too much, it is too much!" cried Prince Feodor; and as if
hunted by the furies, he rushed out, his fists clinched, ready to
crush any one who should try to stop him.

[Footnote 1: Gotzkowsky paid his debt to Russia with thirty thousand
dollars cash; a set of diamonds; and pictures which were taken by
Russia at a valuation of eighty thousand dollars, and formed the first
basis of the imperial gallery at St. Petersburg. Among these were some
of the finest paintings of Titian, some of the best pieces of Rubens,
and one of Rembrandt's most highly executed works--the portrait of his
old mother.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVII.

TARDY GRATITUDE.

John Gotzkowsky, the rich merchant of Berlin, had determined to
struggle no longer with Fate; no longer to undergo the daily
martyrdom of an endangered honor, of a threatened name. Like the
brave Sickenhagen, he said to himself, "Better a terrible end than an
endless terror," and he preferred casting himself down the abyss at
once, to be slowly hurled from cliff to cliff. He had given notice to
the authorities of his failure, and of his intention of making over
all his property to his creditors. He was now waiting to hand over the
assets to the assignees, and leave the house which was no longer his.
Not secretly, however, but openly, in the broad daylight, he would
cross the threshold to pass through the streets of that town which
was so much indebted to him, and which had formerly hailed him as her
savior and preserver. It was inevitable--he must fall, but his fall
should at the same time be his revenge. For the last time he would
open the state apartments of his house; for the last time receive his
guests. But these guests would be the legal authorities, who were to
be his heirs while he was yet alive, and who were to consign his name
to oblivion before death had inscribed it on any tomb-stone.

The announcement of his fall had spread rapidly through the town,
and seemed at last to have broken through the hardened crust which
collects around men's hearts. The promptings of conscience seemed
for a moment to overcome the voice of egotism. The magistrates were
ashamed of their ingratitude; and even the Jews of the mint, Ephraim
and Itzig, had perceived that it would have been better to have
avoided notoriety, and to have raised up the humbled Gotzkowsky, than
to have trodden him in the dust enti