It would ill-become me to blame you, but I may be allowed to pity you, for I see the disease in your soul which, like gangrene in the body..." "What next!" cried Neforis.
"This disease," the physician calmly went on--"I mean hatred, should be far indeed from so pious a Christian.

It has stolen into your heart like a thief in the night, has eaten you up, has made bad blood, and led you to treat this heavily-afflicted orphan as though you were to put stocks and stones in the path of a blind man to make him fall.

If, as it would seem, my opinion still weighs with you a little, before Paula leaves your house you will ask her pardon for the hatred with which you have persecuted her for years, which has now led you to add an intolerable insult--in which you yourself do not believe--to all the rest." At this Paula, who had been watching the physician all through his speech, turned to Dame Neforis, and unclasped her hands which were lying in her lap, ready to shake hands with her uncle's wife if she only offered hers, though she was still fully resolved to leave the house.
A terrible storm was raging in the lady's soul.

She felt that she had often been unkind to Paula.

That a painful doubt still obscured the question as to who had stolen the emerald she had unwillingly confessed before she had come up here.