Pity for the worthless creature who crawled thus in the dust after his detection Count Styrum could not feel. Why should he have any compassion upon the miserable worldling who had squandered his means in every kind of low dissipation and was now nothing more nor less than a common thief? He deserved mercy less than did the criminal whom want and misery had driven to steal. It was his duty to banish him from the society of honest men and deliver him over to a just punishment. And yet, just at this moment, there presented itself to Count Styrum's mind a vision of the lovely young creature who, without a suspicion of the horrible fate impending over her, had but a short time before listened to his words with such interest. Would not a just sentence pronounced upon her husband crush her also? And Adele,--Frau von Sorr was her dearest friend. What a blow her misery would inflict upon Adele! Thus Styrum was still undecided between the consideration he felt for Frau von Sorr and for his cousin's peace of mind and the evident duty of delivering over a thief to justice, when suddenly an idea occurred to him that caused him to waver no longer. What reason had Count Repuin for convicting his friend of a theft? Was he weary of a friendship which, as the Assessor reported, cost him so much money? Had the disdainful repulse he had but now received from Frau von Sorr incited him to revenge? Or did he hope by ruining the husband to plunge the wife into such misery that she would in the end be accessible to his degrading advances? He looked quite capable of so devilish a scheme. "Decide, Count!" Repuin said, hastily. "What is done must be done quickly!" "I have decided," Count Styrum replied. "We owe it to the hospitality extended to us beneath this roof to avoid a scandal which would be most painful to my uncle and to my cousin Adele." "And you will let the fellow go scot-free?" Repuin asked, gloomily. "If we allow him to escape the legal penalty of his villainy, his sole punishment must be the memory of this hour, which, I trust, may serve him as a warning." "Oh, Count Styrum, how shall I thank you!" exclaimed Sorr, to whose cheeks the colour began to return, as he attempted, but vainly, to take Styrum's hand. "Spare me your acknowledgments," said Styrum, turning from him with disgust. "It is owing to no sympathy for you, but to consideration for the society in which I find you, that you are spared the punishment you deserve. Go,--take my advice, and leave my uncle's house on the instant. I trust I shall never meet you again beneath his roof."