Now and then the figure of the Roman rose before her mind’s eye, and every time that this occurred she colored to her very forehead.  But to-day she thought of this disturber of her peace differently from yesterday; for yesterday she had felt herself overwhelmed by him with shame, while to-day it appeared to her as though she had triumphed over him at the procession, since she had steadily avoided his glance, and when he had dared to approach her she had resolutely turned her back upon him.  This was well, for how could the proud foreigner expose himself again to such humiliation.

“Away, away—­for ever away!” she murmured to herself, and her eyes and brow, which had been lighted up by a transient smile, once more assumed the expression of repellent sternness which, the day before, had so startled and angered the Roman.  Soon however the severity of her features relaxed, as she saw in fancy the young man’s beseeching look, and remembered the praise given him by the recluse, and as—­in the middle of this train of thought—­her eyes closed again, slumber once more falling upon her spirit for a few minutes, she saw in her dream Publius himself, who approached her with a firm step, took her in his arms like a child, held her wrists to stop her struggling hands, gathered her up with rough force, and then flung her into a canoe lying at anchor by the bank of the Nile.

She fought with all her might against this attack and seizure, screamed aloud with fury, and woke at the sound of her own voice.  Then she got up, dried her eyes that were wet with tears, and, after laying a freshly wetted cloth on the child’s throat, she went out of doors in obedience to the physician’s advice.

The sun was already at the meridian, and its direct rays were fiercely reflected from the slabs of yellow sandstone that paved the forecourt.  On one side only of the wide, unroofed space, one of the colonnades that surrounded it threw a narrow shade, hardly a span wide; and she would not go there, for under it stood several beds on which lay pilgrims who, here in the very dwelling of the divinity, hoped to be visited with dreams which might give them an insight into futurity.

Klea’s head was uncovered, and, fearing the heat of noon, she was about to return into the door-keeper’s house, when she saw a young white-robed scribe, employed in the special service of Asclepiodorus, who came across the court beckoning eagerly to her.  She went towards him, but before he had reached her he shouted out an enquiry whether her sister Irene was in the gate-keeper’s lodge; the high-priest desired to speak with her, and she was nowhere to be found.  Klea told him that a grand lady from the queen’s court had already enquired for her, and that the last time she had seen her had been before daybreak, when she was going to fill the jars for the altar of the god at the Well of the Sun.

“The water for the first libation,” answered the priest, “was placed on the altar at the right time, but Doris and her sister had to fetch it for the second and third.  Asclepiodorus is angry—­not with you, for he knows from Imhotep that you are taking care of a sick child—­but with Irene.  Try and think where she can be.  Something serious must have occurred that the high-priest wishes to communicate to her.”