ot
yet open before him; he secretly mourned over the ruined house of his
fathers and the wrecked home; a miserable sense of insecurity weighed him
down. No father--no mother-no parental roof! For years he had been, in
fact, perfectly independent, and yet he felt now like a pilot whose boat
had lost its rudder.

Before him lay a prison, and the closing act of the great tragedy of
which he himself had been the hero. Fate had fallen on his house, had
marked it for destruction as erewhile that of Tantalus. It lay in ashes,
and the victims were already many: two brothers, father, mother--and, far
away from home, Rufinus too.

But whose was the guilt?

It was not his ancestors who had sinned; it could only be his own that
had called down this ruin. But was there then such a power as the Destiny
of the ancients--inexorable, iron Fate? Had he not repented and suffered,
been reconciled to his Redeemer, and prepared himself to fight the hard
fight? Perhaps he was indeed to be the hero of a tragedy; then he would
show that it was not the blind Inevitable, but what a man can make of
himself, and what he can do by the aid of the God of might, which
determines his fate. If he must still succumb, it should only be after a
valiant struggle and defense. He would battle fearlessly against every
foe, would press onward in the path he had laid down for himself. His
heart beat high once more; he felt as though he could see his father's
example as a guiding star in the sky, so that he must be true to that
whether to live or to die. And when he turned his eye earthwards again,
still, even there, he had that which made it seem worth the cost of
enduring the pangs of living and the brunt of the hardest battle: Paula
and her love.

The nearer he approached Fostat, the more ardently his heart swelled with
longing. Heaven must grant him to see her once more, once more to clasp
her in his arms, before--the end!

It seemed to him that what he had gone through in these few hours must
have removed and set aside everything that could part them. Now, he felt,
he had strength to remain worthy of her; if Heliodora were to come in his
way again he would now certainly, positively, regard and treat her only
as a sister.

He was conducted at once to the house of the Kadi; but this official was
at the Divan--the council, which his arch-foe, that black monster Obada,
had called together.

After the labors of the past night the Negro had allowed himself