arrows which, sent from the prison, pierced her to the heart, and a
torturing fear which never gave her any peace, day or night.

When the physician came to transport the sick to the hospital in the
desert, he mentioned incidentally that the judges had condemned Paula to
death, and that the populace and senate, in spite of the new bishop's
prohibition, had determined to cast her into the river in accordance with
an ancient custom. Orion's fate was not to be decided till the following
day; but it would hardly be to his advantage in the eyes of his Jacobite
judges, that his betrothed was this Syrian Melchite.

At this Katharina was forced to support herself against her mother's arm-
chair to save herself from sinking on her knees; with tingling cheeks she
questioned the leech till he lost all patience and turned away much
annoyed at such excessive feminine curiosity.

Yes! "The other" was his betrothed before all the world; but only to
die! The blood rushed through her veins in a hot tide at the thought;
she could have laughed aloud and fallen on the neck of every one she met.
What she felt was hideous; malignant spite possessed her; but it gave her
rapture--delicious rapture--a flower of hell, but with splendid petals
and intoxicating perfume. But its splendor dazzled her and its fragrance
presently sickened her. Sheer horror of herself came over her, and yet
she could have shouted with joy each time that the thought flashed
through her brain: "The other must die!"

Her mother feared that her daughter, too, was about to fall ill, her eyes
glowed so strangely and she was so restless and nervously excitable.

Since Heliodora had taken the overwhelming news of Orion's betrothal to