"I know that it is a pity you should not be better looked after."

"Bring Nina home here and she will look after me."

"Go to bed, miss--at once, do you hear?"

Then Ruth went off to her bed, wondering at Nina's choice, and
declaring to herself, that if ever she took in hand a lover at all, he
should be a lover very different from her uncle, Anton Trendellsohn.




CHAPTER V


The more Madame Zamenoy thought of the terrible tidings which had
reached her, the more determined did she become to prevent the
degradation of the connection with which she was threatened. She
declared to her husband and son that all Prague were already talking
of the horror, forgetting, perhaps, that any knowledge which Prague had
on the subject must have come from herself. She had, indeed, consulted
various persons on the subject in the strictest confidence. We have
already seen that she had told Lotta Luxa and her son, and she had, of
course, complained frequently on the matter to her husband. She had
unbosomed herself to one or two trusty female friends who lived near
her, and she had applied for advice and assistance to two priests.
To Father Jerome she had gone as Nina's confessor, and she had also
applied to the reverend pastor who had the charge of her own little
peccadilloes. The small amount of assistance which her clerical allies