doubts had been, and how
little ground he had for regarding the physician as a rival; for indeed
this man did not look like a happy lover. He hurried on with his head
bent, as though under a heavy burthen, and clasped his hand to his
forehead with a gesture of despair. No, this nocturnal wanderer had left
no hour of bliss behind him; and if his demeanor was calculated to rouse
any feeling it was not envy, but pity.

Philippus did not heed Orion; absorbed in himself, he strode on, moaning
dully, as if in pain. For a few minutes he disappeared into a house
whence came loud cries of suffering, and when he came out again, he
walked on, shaking his head now and then, as a man who sees many things
happen which his understanding fails to account for.

The end of his walk was a large, palatial building. The stucco had fallen
off in places, and in the upper story the windows had been broken away
till their open ings were a world too wide. In former times this house
had accommodated the State officers of Finance for the province, and the
ground-floor rooms had been suitably and comfortably fitted up for the
Ideologos--the supreme controller of this department, who usually resided
at Alexandria, but who often spent some weeks at Memphis when on a tour
of inspection. But the Arabians had transferred the management of the
finances of the whole country to the new capital of Fostat on the other
shore of the river, and that of the monetary affairs of the decaying city
had been incorporated with the treasurer's department of the Mukaukas'
household. The senate of the city had found the expense of this huge
building too heavy, and had been well content to let the lower rooms to
Philippus and his Egyptian friend, Horapollo.

The two men occupied different rooms, but the same slaves attended to
their common housekeeping and also waited on the physician's assistant, a
modest and well-informed Alexandrian.

When Philippus entered his old friend's lofty and spacious study he found
him still up, sitting before a great number of rolls of manuscript, and
so absorbed in his work that he did not notice his late-coming comrade
till the leech bid him good-evening. His only reply was an unintelligible
murmur, for some minutes longer the old man was lost in study; at last,
however, he looked up at Philippus, impatiently tossing an ivory
ruler-which he had been using to open and smooth the papyrus on to the
table; and at the same moment a dark bundl