and all
the tenderness with which his soul was overflowing for this sweet young
bud of humanity would have found expression in his voice but that he
could only mutter huskily:

"Mary, my darling! For your sake I should be glad to live a long while
yet, a very long while; but the other world--I am standing already on
its threshold. Good-bye--I must indeed say good-bye."

"No, no--I will pray; oh! I will pray so fervently that you may get well
again!" cried the child. But he replied:

"Nay, nay. The Saviour is already taking me by the hand. Farewell, and
again farewell. Did you bring Paula? I do not see her. Did you bring
Paula with you, sweetheart? She--did she leave us in anger? If she only
knew; ah! your Paula has treated us ill." The child's heart was still
full of the horrible crime which had so revolted her truthful nature,
and which had deprived her of rest all through an evening, a long
night and a morning; she laid her little head close to that of the old
man--her dearest and best friend. For years he had filled her father's
place, and now he was dying, leaving her forever! But she could not let
him depart with a false idea of the woman whom she worshipped with all
the fervor of her child's heart; in a subdued voice, but with eager
feeling, she said, close to his ear:

"But Grandfather, there is one thing you must know before the Saviour
takes you away to be happy in Heaven. Paula told the truth, and never,
never told a lie, not even for Hiram's sake. An empty gold frame hung to
her necklace and no gem at all. Whatever Orion may say, I saw it myself
and cannot be mistaken, as truly as I hope to see you and my poor father
in heaven! And Katharina, too, thought better of it, and confessed to me
just now that she had committed a great sin and had borne false witness
before the judges to please her dear Orion. I do not know what Hiram
had done to offend him; but on the strength of Katharina's evidence the
judges condemned him to death. But Paula--you must understand that Paula
had nothing, positively nothing whatever to do with the stealing of the
emerald."

Orion, kneeling there, was condemned to hear every word the little
girl so vehemently whispered, and each one pierced his heart like a
dagger-thrust. Again and again he felt inclined to clutch at her across
the bed and fling her on the ground before his father's eyes; but grief
and astonishment seemed to have paralyzed his whole being; he had not
even the