but Paula begged the head gardener, who had come
in with the rest, to compare the foot-prints of the fugitive, which must.
yet be visible on the damp grass, with the shoes; her heart beat wildly,
and again she tried to catch the young man's eye. Orion, however, started
forward and went into the viridarium, saying as he went: "That is my
concern."

But he was ashamed of himself, and felt as if something tight was
throttling him. In his own eyes he appeared like a thief caught in the
act, a traitor, a contemptible rascal; and he began to perceive that he
was indeed no longer what he had been before he had committed that fatal
deed in the tablinum.

Paula breathed hard as she watched him go out. Had he sunk so low as to
falsify the evidence, and to declare that the groom's broad sole fitted
the tracks of his small and shapely feet? She hated him, and yet she
could have found it in her heart to pray that this, at least, he might
not do; and when he came back and said in some confusion that he could
not be sure, that the shoes did not seem exactly to fit the foot-marks,
she drew a breath of relief and turned again to the wounded girl and the
physician, who, had now made his appearance. Before Neforis followed her
example she drew Orion aside and anxiously asked him what ailed him, he
looked so pale and upset. He only said with some hesitation: "That poor
girl's fate . . ." and he pointed to the Persian slave.--"It troubles
me."

"You are so soft-hearted--you were as a boy!" said his mother soothingly.
She had seen the moisture sparkling in his eyes; but his tears were not
for the Persian, but for the mysterious something--he himself knew not
what to call it--that he had forfeited in this last hour, and of which
the loss gave him unspeakable pain.

But their dialogue was interrupted: the first misfortune of this luckless
night had brought its attendant: the body of Rustem, the splendid and
radiantly youthful Rustem, the faithful Persian leader of the caravan,
was borne into the hall, senseless. He had made some satirical remark on
the quarrel over creeds, and a furious Jacobite had fallen upon him with
a log of wood, and dealt him a deep and perhaps mortal wound. The leech
at once gave him his care, and several of the crowd of muttering and
whispering men, who had made their way in out of curiosity or with a wish
to be of use, now hurried hither and thither in obedience to the
physician's orders.

As soon as he saw the