been seen and watched by Hermas. True, her heart was sore, true, she was
perplexed and miserable, but sleep and rest had long since effaced from
her healthy, youthful, and elastic frame all traces left by that fearful
day of flight; and fate, which often means best by us when it shows us a
hostile face, had sent her a minor anxiety to divert her from her graver
cares.

Her greyhound was very ill, and it seemed that in the ill-treatment it
had experienced, not only its leg had been broken, but that it had
suffered some internal injury. The brisk, lively little creature fell
down powerless when ever it tried to stand, and when she took it up to
nurse it comfortably in her lap, it whined pitifully, and looked up at
her sorrowfully, and as if complaining to her. It would take neither
food nor drink; its cool little nose was hot; and when she left the cave,
Iambe lay panting on the fine woollen coverlet which Paulus had spread
upon the bed, unable even to look after her.

Before taking the dog the water she had fetched in the graceful jar--
which was another gift from her hospitable friend--she went up to Paulus
and greeted him kindly. He looked up from his work, thanked her, and a
few minutes later, when she came out of the cave again, asked her, "How
is the poor little creature?"

Sirona shrugged her shoulders, and said sadly, "She has drunk nothing,
and does not even know me, and pants as rapidly as last evening--if I
were to lose the poor little beast!--"

She could say no more for emotion, but Paulus shook his head.

"It is sinful," he said, "to grieve so for a beast devoid of reason."