, "and they have taught me chiefly
that there is never a criminal, a sinner, or a scapegrace, however
infamous he may be, however cruel or lost to virtue, 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