rd and unkind, and as the door closed on the young
woman Katharina's eyes glared after her.

Why had this doom passed over Heliodora's head and demanded the sacrifice
of one whose loss she could never cease to mourn?

This brought her mother vividly to her mind. She flew back to her
death-bed and fell on her knees--but even there she could not bear to
stay long, so she wandered into the garden and visited every spot where
she and her mother had been together. But there were such strange
crackings in the shrubs, and the trees and bushes cast such uncanny
shadows that she hailed daybreak as a deliverance.

She was on her way back to the house when her foster-brother Anubis came
limping to meet her. Poor fellow! She had made a cripple of him, too, and
his mother had died through her fault.

The lad spoke to her, giving expression to his sympathy, and she accepted
it; but she said such strange things, and answered him so utterly at
random, that he began to fear that grief had turned her brain. She went
on to ask him point-blank how much money she now had, and as he happened
to know approximately, he could tell her; she clasped her hands, for how
could any one human being who was not a king possess such enormous
wealth! Finally she enquired whether he knew how a will should be drawn
up, and that, too, he answered affirmatively.

She made him describe it all, and then he added that the signature must
be made valid by those of two witnesses; but she, he added, was too young
to be thinking of making her will.

"Why?" said she. "Is Paula much older than I am?"

"And the day after to-morrow," the boy went on, "she is to be cast into
the Nile. All the people call her the Bride of the Nile."

At this that hideous, malignant smile again curled her lips, but she
hastily suppressed it and walked straight on into the house. At the door
he timidly asked her whether he might once more look on his mistress; but
she was obliged to forbid it for fear of infection. However, he proudly
replied: "What you do not fear, has no terrors for me," and he followed
her to the side of the bed where the corpse now lay washed and in fine
array; and when he saw Katharina kiss the dead woman's hand he, too, as
soon as she looked away, pressed his lips on the place hers had touched.
Then he sat down by the bed and remained there till she sent him away.

Before noon the bishop arrived to perform the last rites. He found the
body surrounded by beauti