attribute of the divine, and you have always been well-disposed towards
great and small; but I ask you, have you ever before felt so irresistibly
impelled to pour out an ocean of goodness on another being, whether for
Uarda you would not more joyfully and more self-forgetfully sacrifice all
that you have, and all that you are, than to father and mother and your
oldest friend?"

Nebsecht nodded assentingly.

"Well then," cried Pentaur, "follow your new and godlike emotion, be good
to Uarda and do not sacrifice her to your vain wishes. My poor friend!
With your--enquiries into the secrets of life, you have never looked
round upon itself, which spreads open and inviting before our eyes. Do
you imagine that the maiden who can thus inflame the calmest thinker in
Thebes, will not be coveted by a hundred of the common herd when her
protector fails her? Need I tell you that amongst the dancers in the
foreign quarter nine out of ten are the daughters of outlawed parents?
Can you endure the thought that by your hand innocence may be consigned
to vice, the rose trodden under foot in the mud? Is the human heart that
you desire, worth an Uarda? Now go, and to-morrow come again to me your
friend who understands how to sympathize with all you feel, and to whom
you have approached so much the nearer to-day that you have learned to
share his purest happiness."

Pentaur held out his hand to the physician, who held it some time, then
went thoughtfully and lingeringly, unmindful of the burning glow of the
mid-day sun, over the mountain into the valley of the king's graves
towards the hut of the paraschites.

Here he found the soldier with his daughter. "Where is the old man?"