dread discovery as a thief! It
was inconceivable, and he was afraid, positively afraid for the first
time since his boyhood. His fortunate star, which in the Capital
had shone on him so brightly and benevolently, seemed to have proved
faithless in this ruinous hole! What had that Persian girl taken into
her crazy head that she must rush upon him like some furious beast
of prey? He had been bound to her once, no doubt, by a transient
passion--and what youth of his age was blind to the charms of a pretty
slave-girl? She had been a lovely child, and it was a vexation, nay a
grief to him, that she should have been so shamefully punished. If she
should recover, and he could have prayed that she might, it would of
course be his part to provide for her--of course. To be just, he could
not but confess that she indeed had good reason to hate him: but Paula?
He had shown her nothing but kindness and yet how unhesitatingly, how
openly she had displayed her enmity. He could see her now with the
name "murderer" on her quivering lips; the word had stung him like a
lance-thrust. What a hideous, degrading and unjust accusation lay in
that exclamation! Should he submit to it unrevenged?

Was she as innocent as she was haughty and cold? What was she doing in
the viridarium at midnight?--For she must have been there before that
ill-starred dog flew at Mandane. An assignation with the owner of the
shoes his mother had found was out of the question, for they belonged to
some man about the stables. Love, thought he, for a wonder had nothing
to do with it; but as he came in he had noticed a man crossing the
court-yard who looked like Paula's freedman, Hiram the trainer. Probably
she had arranged a meeting with her stammering friend in order--in
order?--Well, there was but one thing that seemed likely: She
was plotting to fly from his parents' house and needed this man's
assistance.

He had seen within a few hours of his return that his mother did not
make life sweet to the girl, and yet his father had very possibly
opposed her wish to seek another home. But why should she avoid and hate
him? In that expedition on the river and on their way home he could have
sworn that she loved him, and the remembrance of those hours brought her
near to him again, and wiped out his schemes of vengeance against her,
of punishment to be visited on her. Then he thought of little Katharina
whom his mother intended him to marry, and at the thought he laughed
so