And Nina stopped and sang. When she was a child she had sung there very
often, and the friar of those days would put his hand upon her head and
bless her, as she brought her small piece of tribute to his plate. Of
late, since she had been at variance with the Church by reason of the
Jew, she had always passed by rapidly, 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.
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