Pulcheria than the leech himself had gained in years of intimacy.
Horapollo had foreseen, too, that the danger which threatened the
Mukaukas' son would fan Paula's passions like a fresh breeze; and Joanna,
frail, ailing Joanna! she had behaved heroically under the loss of the
companion with whom she had lived for so many years in faithful love.
He could not help comparing her with the wretched Neforis; what was it
that enabled one to bear the equal loss with so much more dignity than
the other? Nothing but the presence of the tender-hearted Pulcheria,
who shared her sorrow with such beautiful resignation, such ready and
complete sympathy. This the governor's widow had wholly lacked; and how
happy were they who could call such a heart their own! He walked through
the garden with his head bent, and looking neither to the right hand nor
the left.

The Masdakite, who was still sitting with Mandane under the sycamore, as
indifferent to the torrid heat as she was, looked after him, and said
with a sigh as he pointed to him:

"There he goes. This is the first time he ever said a rude word to you
or to me: or did you not understand?"

"Oh yes," said she in a low voice, looking down at her needlework.

They talked in Persian, for she had not forgotten the language which her
mother had spoken till her dying day.

Life is sometimes as strange as a fairy-tale; and the accident was indeed
wonderful which had brought these two beings, of all others, at the same
time to the sick room. His distant home was also hers, and he even knew
her uncle--her father's brother--and her father's sad history.