for forgiveness of your sins?"

"As truly as that."

"That is well."

"And what is it that you want to know?"

At this she shook her head, exclaiming uneasily:

"Nay, nay, not yet. It cannot be done so lightly. First let me speak; and
then open the door, and if I want to fly let me go without saying or
asking me another word.--Give me that chair; I must sit down." And in
fact she seemed to need it; for some minutes she had looked very pale and
exhausted, and her hands trembled as she drew her handkerchief across her
face.

When she was seated she began her story; and while her words flowed on
quickly but without expression, as though she spoke mechanically, Orion
listened with eager interest, for what she had to tell struck him as
highly significant and important.

He had been watched by the patriarch's orders. By midnight Benjamin had
already been informed of Orion's visit to Fostat, and to the Arab
general. Nothing, however, had been said about it beyond a fear lest he
had gone thither with a view to abjuring the faith of his fathers and
going over to the Infidels. Far more important were the facts Orion
gathered as to the prelate's negotiations with the Khaliff's
representative. Amru had urged a reduction of the number of convents and
of the monks and nuns who lived on the bequests and gifts of the pious,
busied in all kinds of handiwork according to the rule of Pachomius, and
enabled, by the fact of their living at free quarters, to produce almost
all the necessaries of life, from the mats on the floors to the shoes
worn by the citizens, at a much lower price than the independent
artisans, whether in town or country. The great majority of these poor
creatures were already ruined by such competition, and Amru, seeing the
Arab leather-workers, weavers, ropemakers, and the rest, threatened with
the same fate, had determined to set himself firmly to restrict all this
monastic work. The patriarch had resisted stoutly and held out long, but
at last he had been forced to sacrifice almost half the convents for
monks and nuns.

But nothing had been conceded without an equivalent; for Benjamin was
well aware of the immense difficulties which he, as chief of the Church,
could put in the way of the new government of the country. So it was left
to him to designate which convents should be suppressed, and he had, of
course, begun by laying hands on the few remaining Melchite retreats,
among them the Convent of St. Cecil