her for a defender; but she had not long to
wait, for Orion instantly gave orders that Perpetua should be imprisoned
for bearing false witness. Paula, however, as she had not perjured
herself, but had merely invented an impossible tale with a good motive,
was dismissed, and her chest was to be replaced in her room.

At this Paula once more stepped forth; she unhooked the onyx from the
chain and flung it towards Gamaliel, who caught it, while she exclaimed:

"I make you a present of it, Jew! Perhaps the villain who hung it to my
chain may buy it back again. The chain was given to my great-grandmother
by the saintly Theodosius, and rather than defile it by contact with that
gift from a villain, I will throw it into the Nile!--You--you, poor,
deluded judges--I cannot be wroth with you, but I pity you!--My
Hiram . . ." and she looked at the freedman, "is an honest soul whom I
shall remember with gratitude to my dying day; but as to that unrighteous
son of a most righteous father, that man . . ." and she raised her voice,
while she pointed straight at Orion's face; but the young man interrupted
her with a loud:

"Enough!"

She tried to control herself and replied:

"I will submit. Your conscience will tell you a hundred times over what I
need not say. One last word. . ." She went close up to him and said in
his ear:

"I have been able to refrain from using my deadliest weapon against you
for the sake of keeping my word. Now you, if you are not the basest
wretch living, keep yours, and save Hiram."

His only reply was an assenting nod; Paula paused on the threshold and,
turning to Katharina, she added: "You, child--for you are but a
child--with what nameless suffering will not the son of the Mukaukas
repay you for the service you have rendered him!" Then she left the room.
Her knees trembled under her as she mounted the stairs, but when she had
again taken her place by the side of the hapless, crazy girl a merciful
God granted her the relief of tears. Her friend saw her and left her to
weep undisturbed, till she herself called him and confided to him all she
had gone through in the course of this miserable day.

Orion and Katharina had lost their good spirits; they went back to the
colonnade in a dejected mood. On the way she pressed him to explain to
her why he had insisted on her making this declaration, but he put her
off till the morrow. They found Susannah alone, for his mother had been
sent for by her husband,