foes. Yet I was glad when he
came and grieved when he went away. So the years passed, and love grew
with my growth. My young heart was so full of him, so full. . . . Even when
they forced me to wed another, and after I had become a widow."

The last words had been scarcely audible, and she rested some time ere
she continued:

"Hosea knows all this, except how anxious I was when he was in the field,
and how I longed for him ere he returned. At last, at last he came home,
and how I rejoiced! But he, Hosea . . . ? That woman--Ephraim told me
so--that tall, arrogant woman summoned him to Pithom. But he returned,
and then. . . . Oh, Nun, your son. . . . that was the hardest thing
. . . ! He refused my hand, which my father offered. . . . And how that
hurt me. . . ! I can say no more . . . ! Give me the drink!"

Her cheeks had flushed crimson during these painful confessions, and when
the experienced old man perceived how rapidly the excitement under which
she was laboring hastened the approach of death, he begged her to keep
silence; but she insisted upon profiting by the time still allowed her,
and though the sharp pain with which a short cough tortured her forced
her to press her hand upon her breast, she continued:

"Then hate came; but it did not last long--and never did I love him more
ardently than when I drove after the poor convict--you remember, my boy.
Then began the horrible, wicked, evil time . . . of which I must tell him
that he may not despise me, if he hears about it. I never had a mother,
and there was no one to warn me. . . . Where shall I begin? Prince
Siptah--you know him, father--that wicked man will soon rule over my
country. My father is in a conspiracy with him . . . merciful gods, I can
say no more!"

Terror and despair convulsed her features as she uttered these words; but
Ephraim interrupted her and, with tearful eyes and faltering voice,
confessed that he knew all. Then he repeated what he had heard while
listening outside of her tent, and her glance confirmed the tale.

When he finally spoke of the wife of the viceroy and chief-priest Bai,
whose body had been borne to the shore with her, Kasana interrupted him
with the low exclamation:

"She planned it all. Her husband was to be the greatest man in the
country and rule even Pharaoh; for Siptah is not the son of a king."

"And," the old man interrupted, to quiet her and help her tell what she
desired to say, "as Bai raised, he can over