The priest saw this and admonished her kindly to be on her guard against spiritual pride, though she had indeed earned the right to believe herself capable of the sternest devotion, and did not cease to set an example of filial and Christian love.

He departed; and Katharina, to whom every word in praise of her behavior to her mother, whom her sin had brought to her death-bed, was a torturing mockery, felt that she had deceived one more worthy soul.  She did not, to be sure, deserve to be charged with spiritual pride; for in this silent chamber, where death stood on the threshold, she thought over all the horrible things she had done, and told herself repeatedly that she was the chief and most vile of sinners.

Many times she felt impelled to confide in another soul, to invite a pitying eye to behold and share her inward suffering.

To the bishop above all, the most venerable priest she knew, she would most readily have confessed everything and have submitted to any penance, however severe, at his hands, but shame held her back; and even more did another more urgent consideration.  The prelate, she knew, would demand of her that she should forsake her old life, root out from her soul the old feelings and desires, and begin a new existence; but for this the time had not yet come:  her love was still an indispensable condition of life, and her hatred was even more dear to her.  When Paula’s terrible doom should indeed have overtaken her, and Katharina, her heart full of those old feelings, had gloated over it; when she should have been able to prove to Orion that her love was no less great and strong and self-sacrificing than that of Thomas’ daughter; when she should have compelled him—­as she would and must—­to acknowledge that he had cruelly misprized her and sinned against her; then, and not till then, would she make peace with herself, with the Church, and with her Saviour.  Nay, if need be, she would take the veil and mourn away the rest of her young life as a penitent, in a convent or a solitary rock-cell.  But now—­when Paula, his betrothed, had done this great thing for him—­to perish now, with her love unseen, unknown, uncared for, perhaps forgotten by him, to retire into herself and vanish from his ken—­that was too much for human nature!  Sooner would she be lost forever; body and soul in everlasting perdition, a prey to Satan and hell—­in which she believed as firmly as in her own existence.

So she went on nursing her mother, saw the red spots spread over the sick woman’s whole body—­watched the fever that increased from day to day, from hour to hour; listened with a mixture of horror and gladness—­at which she herself shuddered, though she fed her heart on it—­to the reports of the preparations for the sacrifice of the Bride of the Nile, and to all the bishop could tell her of Paula, and her dying father, and Orion.  She trembled for little Mary, who had disappeared from the neighboring garden, till