in whom
some good quality or other may not be discovered.--Do you remember
Nechebt, the horrible woman who poisoned her two brothers and her own
father? She was captured scarcely three weeks ago; and that very monster
in human form could almost die of hunger and thirst for the sake of her
rascally son, who is a common soldier in the imperial army; at last she
took to concocting poisons, not to improve her own wretched condition,
but to send the shameless wretch means for a fresh debauch. I have known
a thousand similar cases, but I will only mention that of one of the
wildest and blood-thirstiest of robbers, who had evaded the vigilance of
the watch again and again, but at last fell into their hands--and how?
Because he had heard that his old mother was ill and he longed to see
the withered old woman once more and give her a kiss, since he was her
own child! In the same way Orion, however reprobate we may think him,
has at any rate one characteristic which we must approve of: a tender
affection for his father and mother. Your sponge is not utterly steeped
in wickedness; there are still some pores, some cells which resist it;
and if in him, as in so many others, the heart is one of them, then I
say hopefully, like Horace the Roman: 'Nil desperandum.' It would be
unjust to give him up altogether for lost."

To this assurance Paula found no answer; indeed, it struck her that--if
Orion had told her the truth--it was only to please his mother that
he had asked Katharina to marry him, while she herself occupied his
heart.--The physician, wishing to change the subject, was about to speak
again of the death of the Mukaukas, when one of the crippled serving
girls came to announce a woman who asked to speak with Paula. A few
minutes later she was clasped in the embrace of her faithful old friend
and nurse, who rejoiced as heartily, laughing and crying for sheer
delight, as if no tidings of misfortune had reached her; while Paula,
though so much younger, was cut to the heart, and could not shake off
the spell of her grief.

Perpetua understood this and owed her no grudge for the coolness with
which she met her joyful excitement.

She told Paula that she had been well treated in her hot cell, and that
about half an hour since Orion himself, the young Master now, had opened
the door of her prison. He had been very gracious to her, but looked
so pale and sad. The overbearing young man was quite altered; his eyes,
which were dim w