ah was on the point of clasping
the little head to her bosom once more to kiss the aching, the
cursed spot, Katharina pushed her away, flew, distracted, through the
sitting-room into the vestibule, and down the narrow steps leading to
the bathroom.

Her mother looked after her, shaking her head in bewilderment. Then
she turned to Heliodora with a shrug, and said, as the tears filled her
eyes:

"Poor, poor little thing! Too many troubles have come upon her at once.
Her life till lately was like a long, sunny day, and now the hail is
pelting her from all sides at once. She has bad news of the bishop, I
fear."

"He is dying, she said," replied the young widow with feeling.

"Our best and truest friend," sobbed Susannah. "It is, it really is too
much. I often think that I must myself succumb, and as for her--hardly
more than a child!--And with what resignation she bears the heaviest
sorrows!--You, Heliodora, are far from knowing what she has gone
through; but you have no doubt seen how her only thought is to seem
bright, so as to cheer my heart. Not a sigh, not a complaint has passed
her lips. She submits like a saint to everything, without a murmur. But,
now that her clear old friend is stricken, she has lost her self-control
for the first time. She knows all that Plotinus has been to me." And
she broke down into fresh sobbing. When she was a little calmer, she
apologised for her weakness and bid her fair guest good night.

Katharina, meanwhile, was taking a bath.

A bathroom was an indispensable adjunct to every wealthy Graeco-Egyptian
house, and her father had taken particular pains with its construction.
It consisted of two chambers, one for men and one for women; both fitted
with equal splendor.

White marble, yellow alabaster, purple porphyry on all sides; while the
pavement was of fine Byzantine mosaic on a gold ground. There were no
statues, as in the baths of the heathen; the walls were decorated with
bible texts in gold letters, and above the divan, which was covered
with a giraffe skin, there was a crucifix. On the middle panel of the
coffered ceiling was inscribed defiantly, in the Coptic language
the first axiom of the Jacobite creed: "We believe in the single,
indivisible nature of Christ Jesus." And below this hung silver lamps.

The large bath had been filled immediately for Katharina, as the
furnace was heated every evening for the ladies of the house. As she was
undressing, her maid showed her a