"Your face looks as if you were speaking the truth."

"You know that I was not absent from your side the whole of that high
holiday."

"I know it."

Again the doors opened; this time they admitted the trembling Mandane.
The high-priest cast such a look of astonishment and enquiry on her, that
the king saw she must be in some way connected with him, and therefore,
taking no notice of the trembling girl who lay at his feet, he asked:
"Do you know this woman?"

"Yes, my King. I obtained for her the situation of upper attendant to
the--may Auramazda forgive her!--King of Egypt's daughter."

"What led you,--a priest,--to do a favor to this girl?"

"Her parents died of the same pestilence, which carried off my brothers.
Her father was a priest, respected, and a friend of our family; so we
adopted the little girl, remembering the words: 'If thou withhold help
from the man who is pure in heart and from his widow and orphans, then
shall the pure, subject earth cast thee out unto the stinging-nettles,
to painful sufferings and to the most fearful regions!' Thus I became
her foster-father, and had her brought up with my youngest brother until
he was obliged to enter the school for priests."

The king exchanged a look of intelligence with Phanes, and asked: "Why
did not you keep the girl longer with you?"