his, his brow was knit as he replied, with gloomy regret, that though he
had won the woman he loved, it was only to lose her again.

"But the Kadi is your friend and will gain pardon from the Khaliff!"
cried the child.

"But then another enemy suddenly starts up: Horapollo !"

"Oh, our old man!" and the child ground her teeth. "If you did but
know, Orion!--And to think that I must live under the same roof with
him!"

"You!" asked the young man.

"Yes, I. And Pulcheria, and Mother Joanna," and Mary went on to tell him
how the old man had come to live with them and Orion could guess from
various indications that she was concealing some important fact; so he
pressed her to keep nothing from him, till the child could not at last
evade telling him all she had seen and heard.

At this he lost all caution and self-control. Quite beside himself he
called aloud the name of his beloved, invoking in passionate tones the
return of the Governor Amru, the only man who could help them in this
crisis. His sole hope was in him. He had shown himself a real father to
him, and had set him a difficult but a noble task.

"Into which you have plunged over head and ears!" cried the child.

"I thought it all out while on my journey," replied Orion. "I tried
yesterday to write out a first sketch of it, but I lacked what I most