[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





THE BRIDE OF THE NILE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 5.



CHAPTER XVII.

During all these hours Orion had been in the solitude of his own rooms.
Next to them was little Mary's sleeping-room; he had not seen the child
again since leaving his father's death-bed. He knew that she was lying
there in a very feverish state, but he could not so far command himself
as to enquire for her. When, now and again, he could not help thinking
of her, he involuntarily clenched his fists. His soul was shaken to the
foundations; desperate, beside himself, incapable of any thought but that
he was the most miserable man on earth--that his father's curse had
blighted him--that nothing could undo what had happened--that some cruel
and inexorable power had turned his truest friend into a foe and had
sundered them so completely that there was no possibility of atonement or
of moving him to a word of pardon or a kindly glance--he paced the long