into bearing false witness before the
judges. And then she went on to say it was Mary who had first opened her
eyes to the abyss by which she was standing. In the afternoon after the
death of the Mukaukas she had gone with her mother to the governor's
house to join in her friends' lamentations. She had at once asked after
Mary, but had not been allowed to see her, for she was still in bed and
very feverish. She was then on her way to the cool hall when she heard
her mother's voice--not in grief, but angry and vehement--so, thinking
it would be more becoming to keep out of the way, she wandered off
into the pillared vestibule opening towards the Nile. She would not for
worlds have met Orion, and was terribly afraid she might do so, but as
she went out, for it was still quite light, there she found him--and in
what a state! He was sitting all in a heap, dressed in black, with his
head buried in his hands. He had not observed her presence; but she
pitied him deeply, for though it was very hot he was trembling in every
limb, and his strong frame shuddered repeatedly. She had therefore
spoken to him, begging him to be comforted, at which he had started to
his feet in dismay, and had pushed his unkempt hair back from his face,
looking so pale, so desperate, that she had been quite terrified and
could not manage to bring out the consoling words she had ready. For
some time neither of them had uttered a syllable, but at length he
had pulled himself together as if for some great deed, he came slowly
towards her and laid his hands on her shoulders with a solemn dignity
which no one certainly had ever before seen in him. He stood gazing into
her face--his eyes were red with much weeping--and he sighed from his
very heart the two words: "Unhappy Child!"--She could hear them still
sounding in her ears.

And he was altered: from head to foot quite different, like a stranger.
His voice, even, sounded changed and deeper than usual as he went on:

"Child, child! Perhaps I have given much pain in my life without knowing
it; but you have certainly suffered most through me, for I have made
you, an innocent, trusting creature, my accomplice in crime. The great
sin we both committed has been visited on me alone, but the punishment
is a hundred--a thousand times too heavy!"

"And with this," Katharina went on, "he covered his face with his hands,
threw himself on the couch again, and groaned and sighed. Then he sprang
up once more, crying