ich was over his; for she went late
to rest, and in the silence of the night would indulge in sweet and
painful memories. How many loved ones a cruel fate had snatched from her!
Father, brother, her nearest relations and friends; all at once, by the
hand of the Moslems to whom he had abandoned her native land almost
without resistance.

"I do not hear Paula to-night," he remarked, glancing up as though he
missed something. "The poor child has no doubt gone to bed early after
what passed."

"Leave her alone!" said Neforis who did not like to be interrupted in her
jubilant effusiveness, and she shrugged her shoulders angrily. "How she
behaved herself again! We have heard a great deal too much about charity,
and though I do not want to boast of my own I am very ready to exercise
it--indeed, it is no more than my duty to show every kindness to a
destitute relation of yours. But this girl! She tries me too far, and
after all I am no more than human. I can have no pleasure in her
presence; if she comes into the room I feel as though misfortune had
crossed the threshold. Besides!--You never see such things; but Orion
thinks of her a great deal more than is good. I only wish she had been
safe out of the house!"

"Neforis!" her husband said in mild reproach; and he would have reproved
her more sharply but that since he had become a slave to opium he had
lost all power of asserting himself vigorously whether in small matters
or great.

Ere long the Mukaukas had fallen into an uneasy sleep; but he opened his
eyes more frequently than usual. He missed the light footfall overhead to
which he had been accustomed for these two years past; but she who was
wont to pace the floor above half the night through had not gone to rest
as he supposed. After the events of the evening she had indeed retired to
her room with tingling cheeks and burning eyes; but the slave-girls, who
paid little attention to a guest who was no more than endured and looked
on askance by their mistress, had neglected to open her window-shutters
after sundown, as she had requested, and the room was oppressively sultry
and airless. The wooden shutters felt hot to the touch, so did the linen
sheets over the wool mattrasses. The water in her jug, and even the
handkerchief she took up were warm. To an Egyptian all this would have
been a matter of course; but the native of Damascus had always passed the
summer in her father's country house on the heights of Lebanon, in