e her if you belong to the court of
a great officer--perhaps more than an officer--than if you remain a
penniless monk. Not that I believe you. Your only wish on earth, eh? Do
you not care, then, ever to see the fair Hypatia again?'

'I? Why should I not see her? Am I not her pupil?'

'She will not have pupils much longer, my child. If you wish to hear
her wisdom--and much good may it do you--you must go for it henceforth
somewhat nearer to Orestes's palace than the lecture-room is. Ah! you
start. Have I found you an argument now? No--ask no questions. I explain
nothing to monks. But take these letters; to-morrow morning at the
third hour go to Orestes's palace, and ask for his secretary, Ethan the
Chaldee. Say boldly that you bring important news of state; and then
follow your star: it is a fairer one than you fancy. Go! obey me, or you
see no sister.'

Philammon felt himself trapped; but, after all, what might not this
strange woman do for him? It seemed, if not his only path, still his
nearest path to Pelagia; and in the meanwhile he was in the hag's power,
and he must submit to his fate; so he took the letters and went out.

'And so you think that you are going to have her?' chuckled Miriam to
herself, when Philammon went out. 'To make a penitent of her, eh?--a
nun, or a she-hermit; to set her to appease your God by crawling on all
fours among the mummies for twenty years, with a chain round her neck
and a clog at her ankle, fancying herself all the while the bride of the
Nazarene? And you think that old Miriam is going to give her up to you
for that? No, no, sir monk! Better she were dead!.... Follow your dainty
bait!--follow it, as the donkey does the grass which his driver offers
him, always an inch from his nose.... You in my power!--and Orestes in
my power!.... I must negotiate that new loan to-morrow, I suppose....
I shall never be paid. The dog will ruin me, after all! How much is it,
now? Let me see.'.... And she began fumbling in her escritoire, over
bonds and notes of hand. 'I shall never be paid: but power!--to have
power! To see those heathen slaves and Christian hounds plotting and
vapouring, and fancying themselves the masters of the world, and
never dreaming that we are pulling the strings, and that they are our
puppets!--we, the children of the promises--we, The Nation--we, the seed
of Abraham! Poor fools! I could almost pity them, as I think of their
faces when Messiah comes, and they find out wh