When Ziska opened the parcel thus brought to
him, he found it to contain all the notes which he had given to Josef
Balatka.
CHAPTER IV
When Nina returned to her father after Ziska's departure, a very few
words made everything clear between them. "I would not have him if
there was not another man in the world," Nina had said. "He thinks that
it is only Anton Trendellsohn that prevents it, but he knows nothing
about what a girl feels. He thinks that because we are poor I am to be
bought, this way or that way, by a little money. Is that a man, father,
that any girl can love?" Then the father had confessed his receipt of
the bank-notes from Ziska, and we already know to what result that
confession had led.
Till she had delivered her packet into the hands of Lotta Luxa, she
maintained her spirits by the excitement of the thing she was doing.
Though she should die in the streets of hunger, she would take no money
from Ziska Zamenoy. But the question now was not only of her wants, but
of her father's. That she, for herself, would be justified in returning
Ziska's money there could be no doubt; but was she equally justified in
giving back money that had been given to her father? As she walked to
the Windberg-gasse, still holding the parcel of notes in her hand, she
had no such qualms of conscience; but as she returned, when it was
altogether too late for repentance, she made pictures to herself of
terrible scenes in which her father suffered all the pangs of want,
because she had compelled him to part with this money.
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