e; a dark-haired beauty, she,
with a profile of purest Grecian outline.

"Cease thy chatter, Sada! Canst not see the girl is dead with cold and
hunger? Leave me the bowl and go get food and wine."

Sada put down the bowl and ran out of the room.

"Your face was frozen," said the Greek. "It is well that you found help
in time."

"You are good," Eldris murmured with stiff lips. She was dropping to
sleep again through sheer exhaustion in spite of pain, when Sada
returned with a tray which held a bowl, smoking hot, an ampulla of wine,
and a cheap brass cup. Between them the women roused Eldris and fed her
carefully. As her strength began to return, she looked about her with
quickening interest. But the room told her nothing. It was small and
bare, furnished with but the bed on which she lay, a copper brazier of
charcoal, and a couple of wooden stools. The women, over her head,
talked in low voices.

"She will sleep to-night, and to-morrow our mistress will see her," said
Sada. "Where didst find her, Eunice?"

"At the door," the Greek answered. "I was stationed there to let in you
know who, and heard a knock. So this girl entered, crying out that men
were after her, so far as I could understand, and slammed the door
before I could say her nay. You told Chloris of her, then?"

Sada nodded and laid a finger on her lips.

"She sleeps," she whispered. "Let us go."

But Eldris opened heavy eyes with effort.

"Pray you tell me where is the wine-shop of Nicodemus!" she murmured,
husky with drowsiness. "It is there that I must go and wait--"

The tall Greek Eunice laid a hand on her aching head.

"Sleep now," she said. "To-morrow will be time enough to know."

And Eldris slept, as lost to the world behind the dead blank wall as
Nicanor in his dungeon cell.

It seemed to her, in her sleep, that she lay with body dead but soul
alive and conscious. She dreamed confusedly, strange formless dreams, in
which women dark and fair, Hito, Nicanor, and herself were involved
inextricably. She dreamed of stealthy whisperings behind closed doors,
of laughing faces which looked down upon her as she lay with body dead
and soul conscious. With awakening came remembrance and a thrill of
apprehension. She lifted herself on an elbow and saw the Saxon girl Sada
sitting on the floor, regarding her steadfastly.

"Have I slept long?" Eldris asked.

"It is evening again," said Sada.

"Then I must go at once!" Eldris exclaimed. She got o