has been to me like a messenger from God, like a good angel to teach
me how to lay hold on what is earnest and noble in life-her whom my
father, too, held dear. Power, indeed, is yours. Demand of me anything
reasonable, and within my attainment, and I will try to force myself to
obedience; but I never can and never will be faithless to her, to prove
my faith to you; and as to the Arabs...."

"Enough!" exclaimed the prelate. "I am on my way to Upper Egypt. Make
your choice by my return. I give you till then to come to a right mind,
to think the matter over; and it is quite deliberately that I bid you to
forget the Melchite. That you, of all men, should marry a heretic would
be an abomination not to be borne. With regard to your alliance with the
Arabs, and whether it becomes you--being what you are--to take service
with them, we will discuss it at a future day. If, by the time I return,
you have thought better of the matter as regards your marriage--and you
are free to choose any Jacobite maiden--then I will speak to you in a
different tone. I will then offer you my friendship and support; instead
of the Church's curse I will pronounce her blessing on you--the pardon
and grace of the Almighty, a smooth path to eternity and peace, and the
prospect of giving new joy to the aching heart of your sorrowing mother.
My last word is that you must and shall give up the woman from whom you
can look for nothing but perdition."

"I cannot, and shall not, and I never will!" replied Orion firmly.

"Then I can, and shall, and will make you feel how heavily the curse
falls which, in the last resort, I shall not hesitate to pronounce upon
you!"

"It is in your power," said Orion. "But if you proceed to extremities
with me, you will drive me to seek the blessing for which my soul
thirsts more ardently than you, my lord, can imagine, and the salvation
I crave, with her whom you hold reprobate, and on the further side of
the Nile."

"I dare you!" cried the patriarch, quitting the room with a resolute
step and flaming cheeks.

CHAPTER II.

Orion was alone in the spacious room, feeling as though the whole world
were sinking into nothingness after the rack of storm and tempest.
At first he was merely conscious of having gone through a fearful
experience, which threatened to fling him far outside the sphere of
everything he was wont to reverence and hold sacred. For love and honor
of his guardian angel he had declared war to the p