The perfect happiness of Mena and Nefert was troubled by the fearful death of Katuti, but both felt as if they now for the first time knew the full strength of their love for each other.  Mena had to make up to his wife for the loss of mother and brother, and Nefert to restore to her husband much that he had been robbed of by her relatives, and they felt that they had met again not merely for pleasure but to be to each other a support and a consolation.

Rameses quitted the scene of the fire full of gratitude to the Gods who had shown such grace to him and his.  He ordered numberless steers to be sacrificed, and thanksgiving festivals to be held throughout the land; but he was cut to the heart by the betrayal to which he had fallen a victim.  He longed—­as he always did in moments when the balance of his mind had been disturbed—­for an hour of solitude, and retired to the tent which had been hastily erected for him.  He could not bear to enter the splendid pavilion which had been Ani’s; it seemed to him infested with the leprosy of falsehood and treason.

For an hour he remained alone, and weighed the worst he had suffered at the hands of men against that which was good and cheering, and he found that the good far outweighed the evil.  He vividly realized the magnitude of his debt of gratitude, not to the Immortals only, but also to his earthly friends, as he recalled every moment of this morning’s experience.

“Gratitude,” he said to himself, “was impressed on you by your mother; you yourself have taught your children to be grateful.  Piety is gratitude to the Gods, and he only is really generous who does not forget the gratitude he owes to men.”

He had thrown off all bitterness of feeling when he sent for Bent-Anat and Pentaur to be brought to his tent.  He made his daughter relate at full length how the poet had won her love, and though he frequently interrupted her with blame as well as praise, his heart was full of fatherly joy when he laid his darling’s hand in that of the poet.

Bent-Anat laid her head in full content on the breast of the noble Assa’s grandson, but she would have clung not less fondly to Pentaur the gardener’s son.

“Now you are one of my own children,” said Rameses; and he desired the poet to remain with him while he commanded the heralds, ambassadors, and interpreters to bring to him the Asiatic princes, who were detained in their own tents on the farther side of the Nile, that he might conclude with them such a treaty of peace as might continue valid for generations to come.  Before they arrived, the young princes came to their father’s tent, and learned from his own lips the noble birth of Pentaur, and that they owed it to their sister that in him they saw another brother; they welcomed him with sincere affection, and all, especially Rameri, warmly congratulated the handsome and worthy couple.