y insisted on starting. The three women parted;
but still the little girl held tightly to Paula, even when she went up to
the matron and kissed her with a natural impulse. Martina took her head
between her hands, kissed her fondly, and said in a voice she could
scarcely control: "God protect and keep you, child! I thank Him for
having brought us together. A soul so pure and clear as yours is not to
be found in the capital, but we still know how to be friends to our
friends--at any rate I and my husband do--and if Heaven but grants me the
opportunity you shall prove it. You never need feel alone in the world;
never, so long as Justinus and his wife are still in it. Remember that,
child; I mean it in solemn earnest."

With this, she again embraced Paula, who as she went out to enter the
chariot also bestowed a farewell kiss on Eudoxia and Mandane, for they,
too, stood modestly weeping in the background; then she gave her hand to
the hump-backed gardener, and to the Masdakite, down whose cheeks tears
were rolling. At this moment Katharina stood in her path, seized her arm
in mortified excitement, and said insistently:

"And have you not a word for me?"

Paula freed herself from her clutch and said in a low voice: "I thank you
for lending me the chariot. As you know, it is taking me to prison, and I
fear it is your perfidy that has brought me to this. If I am wrong,
forgive me--if I am right, your punishment will hardly be lighter than my
fate. You are still young, Katharina; try to grow better."

And with this she stepped into the chariot with old Betta, and the last
she saw was little Mary who threw herself sobbing into Joanna's arms.

CHAPTER XIV.

Susannah had never particularly cared for Paula, but her fate shocked her
and moved her to pity. She must at once enquire whether it was not
possible to send her some better food than the ordinary prison-fare. That
was but Christian charity, and her daughter seemed to take her friend's
misfortune much to heart. When she and Martina returned home she looked
so cast down and distracted that no stranger now would ever have dreamed
of comparing her with a brisk little bird.

Once more a poisoned arrow had struck her. Till now she had been wicked
only in her own eyes; now she was wicked in the eyes of another. Paula
knew it was she who had betrayed her. The traitoress had been met by
treachery. The woman she hated had a right to regard her as spiteful and
malignant, an