"Nefert has left Katuti's house, and as thou knowest has followed thy
daughter, Bent-Anat, to the sacred mountain, and to Megiddo."

"I thought the change was a good one," replied Rameses. "I leave Bent-
Anat in the care of Bent-Anat, for she needs no other guardianship, and
your wife can have no better protector than Bent-Anat."

"Certainly not!" exclaimed Mena with sincere emphasis. "But before
they started, miserable things occurred. Thou knowest that before she
married me she was betrothed to her cousin, the pioneer Paaker, and he,
during his stay in Thebes, has gone in and out of my house, has helped
Katuti with an enormous sum to pay the debts of my wild brother-in-law,
and-as my stud-keeper saw with his own eyes-has made presents of flowers
to Nefert."

The king smiled, laid his hand on Mena's shoulder, and said, as he looked
in his face: "Your wife will trust you, although you take a strange woman
into your tent, and you allow yourself to doubt her because her cousin
gives her some flowers! Is that wise or just? I believe you are jealous
of the broad-shouldered ruffian that some spiteful Wight laid in the nest
of the noble Mohar, his father."

"No, that I am not," replied Mena, "nor does any doubt of Nefert disturb
my soul; but it torments me, it nettles me, it disgusts me, that Paaker
of all men, whom I loathe as a venomous spider, should look at her and
make her presents under my very roof."

"He who looks for faith must give faith," said the king. "And must not I
myself submit to accept songs of praise from the most contemptible