“And you did so?” asked Bertram, trembling.

“I did.  The purchase-money has been due for four months.  My fellow-contractors have not paid.  If Russia insists upon the payment of this debt, I am ruined.”

“And why do not Samuel and Moses pay their part?”

Gotzkowsky did not answer immediately, but when he did, his features expressed scorn and contempt:  “Moses and Samuel are no longer obliged to pay, because yesterday they declared themselves insolvent.”

Bertram suppressed with effort a cry of anger, and covered his face with his hands.  “He is lost,” he muttered to himself, “lost beyond redemption, for he founds his hopes on De Neufville, and he knows nothing of his unfortunate fate.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII.

CONFESSIONS.

Bertram raised his head again, Gotzkowsky was standing near him, looking brightly and lovingly into his sorrowful, twitching face.  It was now Gotzkowsky who had to console Bertram, and, smiling quietly and gently, he told him of the hopes which still remained to him.

“De Neufville may return,” he said.  “He has only gone to the opening of the bank at Amsterdam, and if he succeeds in collecting the necessary sum there, and returns with it as rapidly as possible to Berlin, I am saved.”

“But if he does not come?” asked Bertram with a trembling voice, fixing his sad looks penetratingly on Gotzkowsky.

“Then I am irretrievably lost,” answered Gotzkowsky, in a loud, firm voice.

Bertram stepped quickly up to him, and threw himself in his arms, folding him to his breast as if to protect him against all the danger which threatened him.  “You must be saved!” cried he, eagerly; “it is not possible that you should fall.  You have never deserved such a misfortune.”

“For that very reason I fear that I must suffer it.  If I deserved this disgrace, perhaps it never would have happened to me.  The world is so fashioned, that what we deserve of good or evil never happens to us.”

“But you have friends; thousands are indebted to your generosity, and to your ever-ready, helping hand.  There is scarcely a merchant in Berlin to whom, some time or other, you have not been of assistance in his need!”

Gotzkowsky laid his hand on his shoulder, and replied with a proud air:  “My friend, it is precisely those who owe me gratitude, who are now trying to ruin me.  The very fact of having obliged them, makes them my bitter enemies.  Gratitude is so disagreeable a virtue, that men become implacably hostile to those who impose it on them.”

“When you speak thus, my father,” said Bertram, glowing with noble indignation, “you condemn me, too.  You have bound me to everlasting gratitude, and yet I love you inexpressibly for it.”

“You are a rare exception, my son,” replied Gotzkowsky, sadly, “and I thank God, who has taught me to know you.”