close to his ear:

"But Grandfather, there is one thing you must know before the Saviour
takes you away to be happy in Heaven. Paula told the truth, and never,
never told a lie, not even for Hiram's sake. An empty gold frame hung to
her necklace and no gem at all. Whatever Orion may say, I saw it myself
and cannot be mistaken, as truly as I hope to see you and my poor father
in heaven! And Katharina, too, thought better of it, and confessed to me
just now that she had committed a great sin and had borne false witness
before the judges to please her dear Orion. I do not know what Hiram had
done to offend him; but on the strength of Katharina's evidence the
judges condemned him to death. But Paula--you must understand that Paula
had nothing, positively nothing whatever to do with the stealing of the
emerald."

Orion, kneeling there, was condemned to hear every word the little girl
so vehemently whispered, and each one pierced his heart like a dagger-
thrust. Again and again he felt inclined to clutch at her across the bed
and fling her on the ground before his father's eyes; but grief and
astonishment seemed to have paralyzed his whole being; he had not even
the power to interrupt her with a single word.

She had spoken, and all was told.

He clung to the couch like a shattered wretch; and when his father turned
his eyes on him and gasped out: "Then the Court--our Court of justice
pronounced an unrighteous sentence?" he bowed his head in contrition.

The dying man murmured even less articulately and incoherently than
before: "The gem--the hanging--you, you perhaps--was it you? that