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 hard 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 washe