physician expressed his surprise at the plague having broken out in this
healthy quarter of the town, and in a house kept so scrupulously clean.
She knew at whose bidding the avenging angel had entered there, and whose
criminal guile had trifled with him. The words "murdered your mother"
haunted her, and she remembered the law of the ancients which refused to
prescribe a punishment for the killing of parents, because they
considered such a monstrous deed impossible.

A scornful smile curled her lip. Laws! Principles! Was there one that
she had not defied? She had contemned God, meddled with magic, borne
false witness, committed murder--and as to the one law with promise,
which, if Philippus was right, was exactly the same in the code of her
forefathers as on the tables of Moses, how had she kept that? Her own
mother was no more, and by her act!

All through this frightful retrospect she had never ceased to shiver and,
as this was becoming unendurable, she took to walking up and down and
seeking excuses for her sinful doings: It was not her mother, but
Heliodora whom she had wished to kill; why had malicious Fate....?

Here she was interrupted, for the young widow, who had heard the sad
news, sought her out to comfort her and offer her services. She spoke
to the girl with real affection; but her sweet, low tones reminded
Katharina of that evening after the old bishop's death; and when
Heliodora put out her arm to draw her to her, she shrank from her,
begging her in a dry, hoarse voice, not to touch her for her clothes were
infected. She wanted no comfort; all she asked was to be left alone--
quite alone--nothing more. The words were hard and unkind, and as the
door closed on the young woman Katharina's eyes glared after her.