Heinrich stamped his foot angrily on the floor. "Willful, haughty witch!" he murmured, as he hurried after her.
She paused on the upper step and nodded to him with all the winning charm of heartfelt emotion. "Be kind to my prisoners, Herr von Ottmar, and I will be kind to you!" Then, turning a corner, she disappeared before Heinrich could follow her. He gazed into vacancy, as if he wished to trace in the air the shadow into which she seemed to have dissolved before his eyes.
The jailers timidly approached him with their petition for pardon. "You shall be forgiven for the sake of this lady's eloquence, which is difficult to resist. But on pain of losing your places let no one hear of what has taken place to-day, or may occur in future," said Heinrich, sternly, and left the building.
The two turnkeys looked at each other a long time in silence; at last one said, as the result of his meditations, "It's the Prison Fairy!"
Heinrich's astonishment was raised to the highest pitch by the appearance of this young girl. Even the thought of the strange fatality which had made Severinus the innocent victim of the sensuality he had denounced so bitterly, a few weeks before, could not long fix his attention. He was convinced that Severinus had discovered to what "rose" he had wished to open his doors, and had gone to Martin's house with the intention of obtaining his daughter's confidence, and using it against him. "Poor Severinus!" said he. "You were compelled to pay dearly for your efforts to save souls. The ghost of the artist whose Hebe you so mercilessly shattered has revenged itself upon you; but the innocent tool of this vengeance was the very person whom you had most deeply injured, the poor, rejected Albert! Oh, the wonderful justice of fate!"
Then he returned again to the remarkable apparition of the young girl, which unceasingly occupied his thoughts. She had such a peculiar, changeful temperament that she had pleasantly affected every chord of his being. A deep earnestness gleamed through the naïve coquetry by which she had sought to bribe him to favor her protégés. He perceived that hers was a kindred spirit, that she too, like himself, was under the influence of supernatural powers, but in her childlike soul had unconsciously united these forces in harmonious, changeful action, instead of, like him, being their sport.
This perception awed him. He felt that he would be understood by this nature if he showed himself openly to her, and rejected a thousand plans to discover who she was. "What strength is it that, in a feeble woman, rules powers which have crushed and conquered me--a man? Would not this strength exert a blissful influence over me also? With what joyous pride she said, 'I am making myself useful.' She is happy in the thought, and wants nothing more. Is it possible? Yet it must be. In her character lies concealed that spirit of martyrdom which dies smiling for its idea.
"There is something strange in a philanthropy which rejoices in making others happy. Hitherto I have not desired to give joy to any one except myself! Perhaps she will teach me her art.
"She joyously collects the tears of her dirty criminals as if they were the most precious pearls. I wear on my breast the jewels of various orders,--and yet all have never given me so much pleasure as a single tear causes her.
"Who knows, perhaps I have not yet done as much to earn my orders as she was compelled to do to win her pearls from the secret depths of those hardened souls. Oh, she is a glorious creature! She has the cleverness of a man, and yet is so thoroughly womanly. She proves conclusively that woman can really rise above her narrow sphere of ideas without becoming unwomanly, and that the true emancipation of the mind has nothing in common with that emancipation from principles and forms which so often repels us in those termed women of genius. Yes, such a woman would be capable of obtaining an influence over me.