You will find that you can do something for it; the casket will open, and to your surprise and delight you will perceive that the seed dropped into the soil will germinate, that flowers will open and fruit will form of which you may make bread, or extract from it a balm for yourself or for others!  Then you will leave the dead to bury the dead, as the Bible has it, and dedicate to the living those great powers and gracious gifts which an illustrious father and a noble mother—­nay, and a long succession of distinguished ancestors, have bequeathed to a descendant worthy of them.  Then you will recover that which you have lost:  the joy in existence which we ought both to feel and to diffuse, because it brings with it an obligation which it which is only granted to us once to fulfil.  Kind fate has fitted you above a hundred thousand others for being loved; and if you do not forget the gratitude you owe for that, hearts will be turned to you, though now they shun the tree which has beset itself intentionally with thorns, and which lets its branches droop like the weeping-willows by the Nile.  Thus you will lead a new and beautiful life, receiving and giving joy.  The isolated and charmless existence you drag through here, to the satisfaction of none and least of all to your own, you can transform to one of fruition and satisfaction—­breathing and moving healthily and beneficently in the light of day.  It lies in your power.  When you came up here to give your care to these poor injured creatures, you took the first step in the new path I desire to show you, to true happiness.  I did not expect you, and I am thankful that you have come; for I know that as you entered that door you may have started on the road to renewed happiness, if you have the will to walk in it.—­Thank God!  That is said and over!”

The leech rose and wiped his forehead, looking uneasily at Paula who had remained seated; her breath came fast, and she was more confused and undecided than he had ever seen her.  She clasped her hand over her brow, and gazed, speechless, into her lap as though she wished to smother some pain.

The young physician beat his arms together, like a laborer in the winter when his hands are frozen, and exclaimed with distressful emotion:  “Yes, I have spoken, and I cannot regret having done so; but what I foresaw has come to pass:  The greatest happiness that ever sweetened my daily life is gone out of it!  To love Plato is a noble rule, but greater than Plato is the truth; and yet, those who preach it must be prepared to find that truth scares away friends from the unpleasing vicinity of its ill-starred Apostles!”

At this Paula rose, and following the impulse of her generous heart, offered the leech her hand in all sincerity; he grasped it in both his, pressing it so tightly that it almost hurt her, and his eyes glistened with moisture as he exclaimed:  “That is as I hoped; that is splendid, that is noble!  Let me but be your brother, high-souled maiden!—­Now, come.  That poor, crazy, lovely girl will heal of her death-wound under your hands if under any!”