e ruined Temple near Ras'ul-Ain. And
the muazzen who sleeps in the Mosque adjacent to the Temple of Venus
gave out that one night he saw him with a woman in that very place."

A woman with Khalid, and in the Temple of Venus at night? Be not too
quick, O Reader, to suspect and contemn; for the Venus-worship is not
reinstated in Baalbek. No tryst this, believe us, but a scene
pathetic, more sacred. Not Najma this questionable companion, but one
as dear to Khalid. Ay, it is his mother come to seek him here. And she
begs him, in the name of the Virgin, to return home, and try to do the
will of his father. She beats her breast, weeps, prostrates herself
before him, beseeches, implores, cries out, 'dakhilak (I am at your
mercy), come home with me.' And Khalid, taking her up by the arm,
embraces her and weeps, but says not a word. As two statues in the
Temple, silent as an autumn midnight, they remain thus locked in each
other's arms, sobbing, mingling their sighs and tears. The mother
then, 'Come, come home with me, O my child.' And Khalid, sitting on
one of the steps of the Temple, replies, 'Let him move out of the
house, and I will come. I will live with you, if he will keep at the
Jesuits.'

For Khalid begins to suspect that the Jesuits are the cause of his
banishment from home, that his father's religious ferocity is fuelled
and fanned by these good people. One day, before Khalid was banished,
Shakib tells us, one of them, Father Farouche by name, comes to pay a
visit of courtesy, and finds Khalid sitting cross-legged on a mat
writing a letter.

The Padre is received by Khalid's mother who takes his hand, kisses
it, and offers him the seat of honour on the divan. Khalid continues
writing. And after he had finished, he turns round in his cross-legged
posture and greets his visitor. Which greeting is surely to be
followed by a conversation of the sword-and-shield kind.

"How is your health?" this from Father Farouche in miserable Arabic.

"As you see: I breathe with an effort, and can hardly speak."

"But the health of the body is nothing compared with the health of the
soul."

"I know that too well, O Reverend" (Ya Muhtaram).

"And one must have recourse to the physician in both instances."

"I do not believe in physicians, O Reverend."

"Not even the physician of the soul?"

"You said it, O Reverend."

The mother of Khalid serves the coffee, and whispers to her son a
word. Whereupon Khalid rises and sits on