d will she get by
it?"

"She will breathe and see the sunshine," replied the leech; "she will
be grateful to you, and finally she will contribute what she can to the
whole body. She will be alive in short, she will live. For life--feel
it, understand it as I do--life is the best thing we have." Paula gazed
with astonishment in the man's unlovely but enthusiastic face. How
radiantly joyful!

No one could have called it ugly at this moment, or have said that it
lacked charm.

He believed what he had asserted with such fervent feeling, though it
was in contradiction to a view he had held only yesterday and often
defended: that life in itself was misery to all who could not grasp it
of their own strength, and make something of it worth making. At this
moment he really felt that it was the best gift.

Paula went forward, and his eyes followed her, as the gaze of the pious
pilgrim is fixed on the holy image he has travelled to see, over seas
and mountains, with bruised feet.

They went up to the sick girl's bed. The nun drew back, making her own
reflections on the physician's altered mien, and his childlike, beaming
contentment, as he explained to Paula what particular peril threatened
the sufferer, and by what treatment he hoped to save her; how to make
the bandages and give the medicines, and how necessary it was to accept
the poor crazy girl's fancies and treat them as rational ideas so long
as the fever lasted.

At last he was forced to go and attend to other patients. Paula remained
sitting at the head of the bed and gazing at the face of the sufferer.

How fair it was! And Orion had snatched this rose in the bud, and
trodden it under foot! She had, no doubt, felt for him what Paula
herself felt. And now? Did she feel nothing but hatred of him, or could
her heart, in spite of her indignation and scorn, not altogether cast
off the spell that had once bound it?

What weakness was this! She was, she must, she would be his foe!

Her thoughts went back to the idle and futile life that she had led for
so many years. The physician had hit the mark; and he had been too
easy rather than severe. Yes, she would begin to make good use of
her powers--but how, in what way, here and among these people? How
transfigured poor Philippus had seemed when she had given him her hand;
with what energy had he poured forth his words.

"And how false," she mused, "is the saying that the body is the mirror
of the soul! If it were so,