h you, how great and how sacred it is!--Now you
know all; this, indeed, is the truth!"

They walked on again, and Katharina, who had not been able to gather the
whole of this explanation, could plainly hear Paula's reply in warm, glad
accents:

"Yes, that is the truth, I feel. And henceforth that horrible day is
blotted out, erased from your life and mine; and whatever you tell me in
the future I shall believe."

And the listener heard the young man answer in a tremulous voice:

"And you shall never be deceived in me. Now I must leave you; and I go,
in spite of my griefs, a happy man, entitled to rejoice anew. O Paula,
what do I not owe to you! And when we next meet you will receive me, will
you not, as you did that evening on the river after my return?"

"Yes, indeed; and with even more glad confidence," replied Paula, holding
out her hand with a lovely graciousness that came from her heart; he
pressed it a moment to his lips, and then sprang on to his horse and rode
off at a round trot, his slave following him.

"Katharina, child, Katharina!" was shouted from Susannah's house in a
woman's high-pitched voice. The water-wagtail started up, hastily
smoothing her hair and casting an evil glance at her rival, "the other,"
the supplanter who had basely betrayed her under the sycamores; she
clenched her little fist as she saw Paula watching Orion's retreating
form with beaming eyes. Paula went back into the house, happy and walking
on air, while the other poor, deeply-wounded child burst into violent
weeping at the first hasty words from her mother, who was not at all
satisfied with the disorder of her dress; and she ended by declaring with
defiant audacity that she would not present the flowers to the patriarch,
and would remain in her own room, for she was dying of headache.--And so
she did.

CHAPTER XXIV.

In the course of the afternoon Orion paid his visit to the Arab governor.
He crossed the bridge of boats on his finest horse.

Only two years since, the land where the new town of Fostat was now
growing up under the old citadel of Babylon had been fields and gardens;
but at Amru's word it had started into being as by a miracle; house after
house already lined the streets, the docks were full of ships and barges,
the market was alive with dealers, and on a spot where, during the siege
of the fortress, a sutler's booth had stood, a long colonnade marked out
the site of a new mosque.

There was little to