protection against him.  This lovely creature, all passion, who had taken upon herself to endure the contumely of society, and pain and grief for his sake, knowing too that he had abandoned her, and would never make her his wife before God and men—­she indeed knew what it was to love; and he who was so often inclined to despair of himself felt his heart uplifted at the thought that he was so precious in her eyes, nay—­he would own it—­so idolized.

And how sweet, how purely womanly she was!  Those imploring eyes—­which he had grown quite sick of in Constantinople, for they were as full of pathetic entreaty when she merely begged him to hold her cloak for her as when she appealed to his heart of hearts not to leave her—­that entrancing play of glances which had first bewitched him, came to him to-day as something new and worked the old spell.

In this moment of tender reunion he had promised her at any rate to consider whether he could not release himself from the pledge by which he was bound; but hardly had he spoken the words when the memory of Paula revived in his mind, and an inward voice cried out to him that she was a being of nobler mould than this yielding, weak woman, abject before him—­that she symbolized his upward struggle, Heliodora his perdition.

At length he was able to tear himself from her embrace; and at the first step out of this intoxication into real life again he looked about like one roused from sleep, feeling as though it were by some mocking sport of the devil himself that Paula’s room should have been the scene of this meeting and of his weakness.

An enquiry from Heliodora, as to the fate of the little white dog that she had given him as a remembrance, recalled to his mind that luckless emerald which was to have been his return offering or antidoron.  He evasively replied that, remembering her love of rare gems, he had sent her a remarkably fine stone about which he had a good deal to say; and she gave such childlike and charming expression to her delight and gratitude, and took such skilful advantage of his pleasure in her clinging tenderness, to convince him of the necessity for remaining at home, that he himself began to believe in it, and gave way.  The more this conclusion suited his own wishes the easier it became to find reasons for it:  old Rufinus really did not need him; and if he—­Orion—­had cause to be ashamed of his vacillation, on the other hand he could comfort himself by reflecting that it would be unkind and ungrateful to his good friends to leave them in the lurch just when he could be of use to them.  One pair of protecting arms more or less could not matter to the nuns, while the captive Narses might very probably perish before he could be rescued without his interest with the Arab general.

It was high time to decide one way or the other.—­Well, no; he ought not to go away to-day!

That was settled!

Rufinus must at once be informed of his change of purpose.  To sit down and write at such a moment he felt was impossible:  Nilus should go and speak in his name; and he knew how gladly and zealously he would perform such an errand.