“For your dead father’s sake,” she answered, coloring deeply, “your weal lies already very near my heart.  Am not I, who brought upon you your father’s curse, bound indeed to help you to free yourself from the burden of it?  And it may perhaps be in my power to do so, Orion, if you do not scorn to listen to the counsels of an ignorant girl?”

“Speak,” he cried; but she did not reply immediately.  She only begged him to come into the garden with her; the close atmosphere of the room had become intolerable to both, and when they got out and Katharina had first caught sight of them their flushed cheeks had not escaped her watchful eye.

In the open air, a scarcely perceptible breath from the river moderated the noontide heat, and then Paula found courage to tell him what Philippus had called his apprehension in life.  It was not new to him; indeed it fully answered to the principles he had laid down for the future.  He accepted it gratefully:  “Life is a function, a ministry, a duty!” the words were a motto, a precept that should aid him in carrying out his plans.

“And the device,” he exclaimed, “will be doubly precious to me as having come from your lips.—­But I no longer need its warning.  The wisest and most practical axioms of conduct never made any man the better.  Who does not bring a stock of them with him when he quits school for the world at large?  Precepts are of no use unless, in the voyage of life, a manly will holds the rudder.  I have called on mine, and it will steer me to the goal, for a bright guiding star lights the pilot on his way.  You know that star; it is. . . .”

“It is what you call your love,” she interposed, with a deep blush.—­Your love for me, and I will trust it.”

“You will!” he cried passionately.  “You allow me to hope. . . .”

“Yes, yes, hope!” she again broke in, “but meanwhile. . . .”

“Meanwhile,” he said, “‘do not press me further,’ ought to end your sentence.  Oh!  I quite understand you; and until I feel that you have good reason once more to respect the maniac who lost you by his own fault, I, who fought you like your most deadly foe, will not even speak the final word.  I will silence my longing, I will try. . . .”

“You will try to show me—­nay, you will show me—­that in you, my foe and persecutor, I have gained my dearest friend!—­And now to quite another matter.  We know how we stand towards each other and can count on each other with glad and perfect confidence, thanking the Almighty for having opened out a new life to us.  To Him we will this day. . . .”

“Offer praise and thanksgiving,” Orion joyfully put in.

And here began the conversation relating to little Mary which Katharina had overheard.