Cornelia looked down. "I see with painful confusion," she began, at last, "how greatly your Highness has over-rated me, and how little I deserve the favor you have permitted to fall to my lot in consequence of these expectations. Will your Highness most graciously permit me to correct the last opinion you expressed, that I must prefer to associate with female criminals rather than with men. I feel far less sympathy and interest for a guilty woman; for she has much less excuse than a man. He is created stronger and more ungovernable by nature, therefore his passions must be more violent, his desires fiercer, his acts and thoughts ruder, more energetic, while the moral support given him is not proportionally greater than that of the woman. On the contrary, the moral instincts are more vivid in the latter, and her moral horizon more contracted. How much worse, then, must she be, to sink into crimes which often have no foundation in her nature! No doubt, woman is also the cause of many crimes,--or rather womanly weaknesses; yet these are as repulsive to me as the crimes committed at the expense of all womanly feeling." "That is a very harsh judgment," Ottilie interposed. "I am not harsh, your Highness; I condemn such feeble creatures less, but I have not sufficient sympathy, even for them, to be able to devote myself to them with the necessary self-sacrifice. Besides, I should be unable to believe that my efforts in their behalf would be attended with sufficient success, for the same weakness that permitted them to fall into sin would, it true, make them easily susceptible to repentance, but expose them just as readily to any evil influence as soon as they were left to themselves." "That may unfortunately be true in many cases. But are you not attracted towards the poor creatures who have fallen victims to the highest earthly power,--who have erred through love?" Cornelia started, and a deep blush suffused her face; she knew not why. Her conscience was pure, and yet she could not bear the clear, penetrating glance of the princess. Why did she feel so startled by that word? Why did the look that accompanied it weigh upon her brow like a secret sentence? Surely she had not erred through love, but she had not been heedful of appearances. Suppose Ottilie judged by appearances, and had spoken with a meaning? Oh, that she could banish this treacherous blush! Must it not seem to Ottilie the token of a bad conscience? She could not bear that. She raised her head and looked the princess steadily in the face. "Your Highness, the law does not punish the errors of love; but if a woman falls so low that she commits from love crimes which make her amenable to the law, she becomes as detestable to me as all others. You see I lack the first requisite for the vocation your Highness did me the honor to propose,--the true Christian charity which does not judge but pardons."