high back, he beheld Esther nestled in the seat
asleep--a small figure snugged away under her father's lap-robe.
The hair dishevelled fell over her face. Her breathing was low
and irregular. Once it was broken by a long sigh, ending in a sob.
Something--it might have been the sigh or the loneliness in which
he found her--imparted to him the idea that the sleep was a rest
from sorrow rather than fatigue. Nature kindly sends such relief
to children, and he was used to thinking Esther scarcely more than
a child. He put his arms upon the back of the chair, and thought.

"I will not wake her. I have nothing to tell her--nothing
unless--unless it be my love.... She is a daughter of
Judah, and beautiful, and so unlike the Egyptian; for there
it is all vanity, here all truth; there ambition, here duty;
there selfishness, here self-sacrifice.... Nay, the question
is not do I love her, but does she love me? She was my friend from
the beginning. The night on the terrace at Antioch, how child-like
she begged me not to make Rome my enemy, and had me tell her of
the villa by Misenum, and of the life there! That she should not
see I saw her cunning drift I kissed her. Can she have forgotten
the kiss! I have not. I love her.... They do not know in the
city that I have back my people. I shrank from telling it to
the Egyptian; but this little one will rejoice with me over their
restoration, and welcome them with love and sweet services of hand
and heart. She will be to my mother another daughter; in Tirzah
she will find her other self. I would wake her and tell her these
things, but--out on the sorceress of Egypt! Of that folly I could
not command myself to speak. I will go away, and wait another and
a better time. I will wait. Fair Esther, dutiful child, daughter of
Judah!"

He retired silently as he came.

CHAPTER VIII

The streets were full of people going and coming, or grouped about
the fires roasting meat, and feasting and singing, and happy.
The odor of scorching flesh mixed with the odor of cedar-wood
aflame and smoking loaded the air; and as this was the occasion
when every son of Israel was full brother to every other son of
Israel, and hospitality was without bounds, Ben-Hur was saluted
at every step, while the groups by the fires insisted, "Stay and
partake with us. We are brethren in the love of the Lord." But with
thanks to them he hurried on, intending to take horse at the khan
and return to the tents on th