Orion's visit on the ground-floor, charged to announce
him to Rufinus and not to her mistress. The old man had willingly
undertaken to receive the money as her representative; for Philippus had
not concealed from her that he had acquainted him with the circumstances
under which Paula had quitted the governor's house, describing Orion as a
man whom she had good reason for desiring to avoid.

By about two hours after noon Paula's restlessness had increased so much
that now and then she wandered out of the sick-room, which looked over
the garden, to watch the Nile-quay from the window of the anteroom; for
he might arrive by either way. She never thought of the security of her
property; but the question arose in her mind as to whether it were not
actually a breach of duty to avoid the agitation it would cost her to
meet her cousin face to face. On this point no one could advise her, not
even Perpetua; her own mother could hardly have understood all her
feelings on such an occasion. She scarcely knew herself indeed; for
hitherto she had never failed, even in the most difficult cases, to know
at once and without long reflection, what to do and to leave undone, what
under special circumstances was right or wrong. But now she felt herself
a yielding reed, a leaf tossed hither and thither; and every time she set
her teeth and clenched her hands, determined to think calmly and to
reason out the "for" and "against," her mind wandered away again, while
the memory of her dream, of Orion as he stood by his father's grave--of
Katharina's tale of "the other," and the fearful punishment which he had
to suffer, nay indeed, certainly had suffered--came and went in her mind
like the flocks of birds over the Nile, whose dipping and soaring had
often passed like a fluttering veil between her eye and some object on
the further shore.

It was three hours past noon, and she had returned to the sick-room, when
she thought that she heard hoofs in the garden and hurried to the window
once more. Her heart had not beat more wildly when the dog had flown at
her and Hiram that fateful night, than it did now as she hearkened to the
approach of a horseman, still hidden from her gaze by the shrubs. It must
be Orion--but why did he not dismount? No, it could not be he; his tall
figure would have overtopped the shrubbery which was of low growth.

She did not know her host's friends; it was one of them very likely. Now
the horse had turned the corner; now