"Calm yourself, my child; I do not wish to burden your poor heart still more heavily. You were innocent, and Ottmar's influence was injurious to you. No mortal has a right to decide whether you would have been able to avoid this; I least of all, for I know Ottmar's personal power. I, too, trusted him, and was betrayed, for he is no man's friend, not even his own!" "Unhappy man! Created in the image of God, so handsome, so noble, so capable of giving happiness, and yet a living lie, a deceitful phantom, which irresistibly allures us, and, as soon as we wish to hold it; melts into thin air. Do you understand, Severinus, that one may love him with all the strength of one's life, and when parted from him be but a broken bough which can do nothing but wither?" "I understand it, for no other was ever so dear to me. I hoped to make him an instrument for the advancement of the good cause, thought God had given me in him a being to whom the heart might still be permitted to pay the tribute of human feelings, aided with admiration in the development of his great talents, and nursed him with tender anxiety. I listened to his breathing while he slept, watched him like a brother, and saw with delight that his health gradually improved. When he came up to me with beaming eyes, and said, 'My dear Severinus, how shall I thank you?' my heart swelled with proud delight, and I clasped him in my arms." He paused, covered his eyes with his hand, and continued, in a trembling voice: "And when I was compelled to lose him, such sorrow seized upon me that I struggled as if the foul fiend had possession of him and I must wrest Heinrich's soul from his grasp. It was the punishment that befell me because my love did not still belong exclusively to Heaven, as it ought. I endeavored to disarm his malice against the order as much as possible; I had nurtured the serpent, so it was my duty to deprive it of its venom, and thus I was forced to pursue as an enemy one who had been the dearest person on earth to me. Believe me, my daughter, your tears are not the only ones which have been shed for him." Cornelia seized Severinus's hand with deep emotion; he rose. "I will now leave you alone: you need rest. Compose yourself, and pray. I hope to find you ready to travel early to-morrow morning, and will consider tonight whither I will guide you." As Severinus went out into the street he met a brother-priest, who was just coming from the Jesuit church. "Father Severinus!" he said, in astonishment. "How did you come here? what are you doing in Fräulein Erwing's house?" "I am gaining a soul for the church!" he answered, proudly, and passed on. XX. THITHER.