for there was no small fear that now, when the delayed rising of the
river was causing a fever of anxiety in all minds, the impoverished
populace of the town might rise in defence of the wealthy sisterhood to
whom they were beholden for much benevolence and kind care.

Opposition from the town-senate was also to be looked for, since the
deceased Mukaukas had pronounced this measure unjust and detrimental to
the common welfare. The evicted orthodox nuns were to be taken into
various Jacobite convents as lay sisters similar cases had already been
known; but the abbess, whose superior intellect, high rank, and far-
reaching influence might, if she were left free to act, easily rouse the
prelates of the East to oppose Benjamin, was to be conveyed to a remote
convent in Ethiopia, whence no flight or return was possible.

Katharina's report took but few minutes, and she gave it with apparent
indifference; what could the suppression of an orthodox cloister, and the
dispersion of its heretic sisterhood, matter to her, or to Orion, whose
brothers had fallen victims to Melchite fanaticism? Orion did not betray
his deep interest in all he heard, and when at length Katharina rose and
pointed feebly to the door, all she said, as though she were vexed at
having wasted so much time, was: "That, on the whole, is all."

"All?" asked Orion unlocking the door.

"Certainly, all," she repeated uneasily. "What I meant to ask--whether I
ever know it or not--it does not matter.--It would be better perhaps-yes,
that is all.--Let me go."

But he did not obey her.