he had felt happier and happier, and the remembrance of the transient
rapture he had known had alleviated the pain he was suffering on
Katharina's account.

Katharina, meanwhile, did not go home at once to her mother; on the
contrary, she went straight off to the Bishop of Memphis, to whom she
divulged all she had learnt with regard to the inhabitants of the convent
and the intended rescue. The gentle Plotinus even had been roused to
great wrath, and no sooner had she left him than he set out for Fostat to
invoke the help of Amru, and--finding him absent--of his Vekeel to enable
him to pursue the fugitive Melchite sisters.

When the water-wagtail was at home again and alone in her room, she said
to herself, with calm satisfaction, that she had now contrived something
which would spoil several days for Orion and for Paula, and that might
prove even fatal, so far as she was concerned.




CHAPTER VIII.

Nilus had performed his errand well, and Rufinus was forced to admit that
Orion had done his part and had planned the enterprise with so much care
and unselfishness that his personal assistance could be dispensed with.
Under these circumstances he scarcely owed the young man a grudge for
placing himself at the service of his Byzantine friends; still, his not
coming to the house disturbed and vexed him, less on his own account, or
that of the good cause, than for Paula's sake, for her feelings towards
Orion had remained no secret to him or his wife.