With what delight did Sirona inhale this pure atmosphere, when after a long night—­the fourth that she had passed in the anchorite’s dismal cave-she stepped out into the air.  Paulus sat by the hearth, and was so busily engaged with some carving, that he did not observe her approach.

“Kind good man!” thought Sirona, as she perceived a steaming pot on the fire, and the palm-branches which the Alexandrian had fastened up by the entrance to the cave, to screen her from the mounting sun.  She knew the way without a guide to the spring from which Paulus had brought her water at their first meeting, and she now slipped away, and went down to it with a pretty little pitcher of burnt clay in her hand.  Paulus did indeed see her, but he made as though he neither, saw nor heard, for he knew she was going there to wash herself, and to dress and smarten herself as well as might be—­for was she not a woman!  When she returned, she looked not less fresh and charming than on that morning when she had been seen and watched by Hermas.  True, her heart was sore, true, she was perplexed and miserable, but sleep and rest had long since effaced from her healthy, youthful, and elastic frame all traces left by that fearful day of flight; and fate, which often means best by us when it shows us a hostile face, had sent her a minor anxiety to divert her from her graver cares.

Her greyhound was very ill, and it seemed that in the ill-treatment it had experienced, not only its leg had been broken, but that it had suffered some internal injury.  The brisk, lively little creature fell down powerless when ever it tried to stand, and when she took it up to nurse it comfortably in her lap, it whined pitifully, and looked up at her sorrowfully, and as if complaining to her.  It would take neither food nor drink; its cool little nose was hot; and when she left the cave, Iambe lay panting on the fine woollen coverlet which Paulus had spread upon the bed, unable even to look after her.

Before taking the dog the water she had fetched in the graceful jar—­ which was another gift from her hospitable friend—­she went up to Paulus and greeted him kindly.  He looked up from his work, thanked her, and a few minutes later, when she came out of the cave again, asked her, “How is the poor little creature?”

Sirona shrugged her shoulders, and said sadly, “She has drunk nothing, and does not even know me, and pants as rapidly as last evening—­if I were to lose the poor little beast!—­”

She could say no more for emotion, but Paulus shook his head.

“It is sinful,” he said, “to grieve so for a beast devoid of reason.”