could stop her, she had fled out of the room.

Poor child! He had seen many a loving daughter mourning for her mother,
but never such grief as this. Here, thought he, were two human souls all
in all to each other, and hence this overwhelming sorrow.

Katharina had escaped to her own room, had thrown herself on the
couch--cowering so close that no one entering the room would have taken
the undistinguishable heap for a human being, a grown up, passionately
suffering girl.

It was very hot, and yet a cold shiver ran through her slender frame. Was
she now attacked by the pestilence? No; it would be too merciful of Fate
to take such pity on her woes.

The mother was dead, dragged to the grave by her own daughter. The
disease had first shown itself on her lips; and how many times had the
physician expressed his surprise at the plague having broken out in this
healthy quarter of the town, and in a house kept so scrupulously clean.
She knew at whose bidding the avenging angel had entered there, and whose
criminal guile had trifled with him. The words "murdered your mother"
haunted her, and she remembered the law of the ancients which refused to
prescribe a punishment for the killing of parents, because they
considered such a monstrous deed impossible.

A scornful smile curled her lip. Laws! Principles! Was there one that she
had not defied? She had contemned God, meddled with magic, borne false
witness, committed murder--and as to the one law with promise, which, if
Philippus was right, was exactly the same in the code of her forefathers
as on the tables of Moses, how had she kept that? Her own mother was no
more, and by her act!

All through this frightful retrospect she had never ceased to shiver and,
as this was becoming unendurable, she took to walking up and down and
seeking excuses for her sinful doings: It was not her mother, but
Heliodora whom she had wished to kill; why had malicious Fate. . . ?

Here she was interrupted, for the young widow, who had heard the sad
news, sought her out to comfort her and offer her services. She spoke to
the girl with real affection; but her sweet, low tones reminded Katharina
of that evening after the old bishop's death; and when Heliodora put out
her arm to draw her to her, she shrank from her, begging her in a dry,
hoarse voice, not to touch her for her clothes were infected. She wanted
no comfort; all she asked was to be left alone--quite alone--nothing
more. The words were ha