e river were
plague-stricken; and the physician explained to his friend that this
brought the inhabitants a fresh danger; for who could clear the shores of
the dead fish?--And, in such heat, how soon they would become putrid!

The old man did not conceal from himself that it was hard, cruelly hard,
for the physician to follow his calling conscientiously at such a time;
but he knew his friend; he had seen him during months of pestilence two
years since--always brisk, decisive and gay, indeed inspired to greater
effort by the greater demands on him. What had so completely altered him,
had poisoned and vexed his soul as with a malignant spell? It was not the
almost superhuman sacrifices required by his duties;--it came of the
unfortunate infatuation of his heart, of which he could not rid himself.

Philippus had kept his promise. He went every day to the house of
Rufinus, and every day he saw Paula; but, as a murdered body bleeds
afresh in the presence of the assassin, so every day the old pain revived
when he was forced to meet her and speak with her. The only cure for this
particular sufferer was to remove the cause of his pain: that is to say,
to take Paula away out of his path; and this the old man made his care
and duty.

Little Mary and the other patients under Rufinus' roof were on the way to
recovery; still there was much to cast gloomy shadows over this happy
termination. Joanna and Pulcheria were very anxious as to the fate of
Rufinus. No news had been received of him or of the sisters, and
Philippus was the vessel into which the forsaken wife and Pulcheria--who
looked up to him as to a kind, faithful, and all-powerful protecting
spirit-poured all their sorrows, cares, and fears. Their forebodings were
aggravated by the fact that three times Arab officials had come to the
house to enquire about the master and his continued absence. All that the
women told them was written down, and Dame Joanna, whose lips had never
yet uttered a lie, had found herself forced to give a false clue by
saying that her husband had gone to Alexandria on business, and might
perhaps have to proceed to Syria.--What could these enquiries forebode?
Did they not indicate that Rufinus' complicity in the rescue of the nuns
was known at Fostat?

The authorities there were, in fact, better informed than the women could
suspect. But they kept their knowledge a secret, for it would never do to
let the oppressed people know that a handful of Egy