it back among her other trinkets as she might have tossed an unripe apple back upon a heap.  She slipped her little hand into a gold spiral which curled round half her arm, and gathered up the rest of her jewels, to put them on out of doors as she sat watching.  The waiting-woman was ordered to come for her at noon with the flowers for the Patriarch, and, in a quarter of an hour after leaving her lurking place, she was back there again.  Just in time;—­for while she was putting on the trinkets Nilus came out, followed by some slaves with several leather bags which they replaced in the chariot.  Then the treasurer stepped in and with him Philippus, and the vehicle drove away.

“So Paula has entrusted her property to Orion again,” thought Katharina.  “They are one again; and henceforth there will be endless going and coming between the governor’s house and that of Rufinus.  A very pretty game!—­But wait, only wait.”  And she set her little white teeth; but she retained enough self-possession to mark all that took place.

During her absence indoors Orion’s black horse had been brought into the garden; a groom on horseback was leading him, and as she watched their movements she muttered to herself with a smile of scorn:  “At any rate he is not going to carry her home with him at once.”

A few minutes passed in silence, and at last Paula came out, and close behind her, almost by her side, walked Orion.

His cheeks were no longer pale, far from it, no more than Katharina’s were; they were crimson!  How bright his eyes were, how radiant with satisfaction and gladness!—­She only wished she were a viper to sting them both in the heel!—­At the same time Paula had lost none of her proud and noble dignity—­and he?  He gazed at his companion like a rapt soul; she fancied she could see the folds of his mourning cloak rising and falling with the beating of his heart.  Paula, too, was in mourning.  Of course.  They were one; his sorrow must be hers, although she had fled from his father’s house as though it were a prison.  And of course this virtuous beauty knew full well that nothing became her better than dark colors!  In manner, gait and height this pair looked like two superior beings, destined for each other by Fate; Katharina herself could not but confess it.

Some spiteful demon—­a friendly one, she thought—­led them past her, so close that her sharp ears could catch every word they said as they slowly walked on, or now and then stood still, dogged by the agile water-wagtail, who stole along parallel with them on the other side of the hedge.

“I have so much to thank you for,” were the first words she caught from Orion, “that I am shy of asking you yet another favor; but this one indeed concerns yourself.  You know how deep a blow was struck me by little Mary’s childish hand; still, the impulse that prompted her had its rise in her honest, upright feeling and her idolizing love of you.”