"Is it not a true work of genius?" said _Heinrich's_ companion. "The expression of enthusiastic devotion in the face reflected in the window, and the wonderfully painted hair! One really dreads the moment when that stern, unfeeling prioress will cut it off!" "By whom was the picture painted?" asked _Heinrich_. "By a B---- artist of the name of Richard." "Does any one know whom he had for a model?" "No; he keeps it a profound secret. I could almost believe he has--Heaven knows how!--witnessed such a scene. People don't create such things purely from imagination." _Heinrich_ made no reply, and his acquaintance, perceiving his strange emotion, withdrew. Ottmar went from one picture to another; but reflect and consider as he would, one thing only was clear to him, that Cornelia must have sat to these artists herself, for such a resemblance could not be accidental; and although the window-panes in one picture reflected her face but dimly, it was all the more unmistakable in the other,--and Severinus too. So in this way she had consented to make known to the world her connection with Jesuitism! She must consider these relations an honor of which she publicly boasted, and this she could not do unless she had been converted to Catholicism,--unless they had impressed upon her mind the dogma of the supremacy and infallibility of the one saving church. There was a mysterious connection of ideas between the two pictures; and although he would not give way to it, it oppressed his heart with a torturing dread. The words "people don't create such things purely from imagination" still rang in his ears. Suppose the artist had really taken the idea of his work from the fact that Cornelia, whom he perhaps painted a short time before, had entered a convent? In conditions of the soul like that into which he had cast Cornelia, where the whole existence is pervaded with pain, and every foundation is shaken, the seeds of the Jesuits thrive best; in such moods they most easily obtain a mastery over man. Now, for the first time, it occurred to him that her letter had been redolent of that pride of self-sacrifice, which, after great conflicts, chills so many a young heart, and drives it into the nursery of such virtues, the convent. Suppose Cornelia had gone so far? It was not impossible! Her enthusiasm in everything, especially her zealous desire to be of use, the inclination to sacrifice herself for great ideas which she had so often shown, her susceptibility to the poesy of religion,--all this seemed to him material enough to form an agent of the church; and as the psychological fathers would not have ventured to send such a fiery genius into the world, they had perhaps taken advantage of some moment of weakness to imprison her in one of the convents which lead young girls "to the heart of Jesus." The more _Heinrich_ thought of this, the more probable and clear it appeared. Urged on by his agony, he hastened to ascertain the residences of the two artists.