highly significant and important.

He had been watched by the patriarch's orders. By midnight Benjamin
had already been informed of Orion's visit to Fostat, and to the Arab
general. Nothing, however, had been said about it beyond a fear lest
he had gone thither with a view to abjuring the faith of his fathers
and going over to the Infidels. Far more important were the facts
Orion gathered as to the prelate's negotiations with the Khaliff's
representative. Amru had urged a reduction of the number of convents and
of the monks and nuns who lived on the bequests and gifts of the pious,
busied in all kinds of handiwork according to the rule of Pachomius, and
enabled, by the fact of their living at free quarters, to produce almost
all the necessaries of life, from the mats on the floors to the shoes
worn by the citizens, at a much lower price than the independent
artisans, whether in town or country. The great majority of these poor
creatures were already ruined by such competition, and Amru, seeing the
Arab leather-workers, weavers, ropemakers, and the rest, threatened with
the same fate, had determined to set himself firmly to restrict all this
monastic work. The patriarch had resisted stoutly and held out long,
but at last he had been forced to sacrifice almost half the convents
for monks and nuns.

But nothing had been conceded without an equivalent; for Benjamin was
well aware of the immense difficulties which he, as chief of the Church,
could put in the way of the new government of the country. So it was
left to him to designate which convents should be suppressed, and he had,
of course, begun by laying hands on the few remaining Melchite retreats,
among them the Convent of St. Cecilia, next to the house of Rufinus.
This establishment was now to be closed within three days and to become
the property of the Jacobite Church; but it was to be done quite quietly,