I shall be back again directly, but before I return she will have opened her eyes; you are pleasanter to look upon than a shaggy old graybeard, and she will be better pleased to see you than me when she awakes.”  Paulus’ prognosis was justified, for when he returned to Sirona with a fresh supply of water she was sitting upright; she rubbed her open eyes, stretched her limbs, clasped the greyhound in both arms, and burst into a violent flood of tears.

The Alexandrian stood aside motionless, so as not to disturb her, thinking to himself: 

“These tears will wash away a large part of her suffering from her soul.”

When at last she was calmer, and began to dry her eyes, he went up to her, offered her the stone cup of water, and spoke to her kindly.  She drank with eager satisfaction, and ate the last bit of bread that he could find in the pocket of his garment, soaking it in the water.  She thanked him with the childlike sweetness that was peculiar to her, and then tried to rise, and willingly allowed him to support her.  She was still very weary, and her head ached, but she could stand and walk.

As soon as Paulus had satisfied himself that she had no symptoms Of fever, he said, “Now, for to-day, you want nothing more but a warm mess of food, and a bed sheltered from the night-chill; I will provide both.  You sit down here; the rocks are already throwing long shadows, and before the sun disappears behind the mountain I will return.  While I am away, your four-footed companion here will while away the time.”

He hastened down to the spring with quick steps; close to it was the abandoned cave which he had counted on inhabiting instead of his former dwelling.  He found it after a short search, and in it, to his great joy, a well preserved bed of dried plants, which he soon shook up and relaid, a hearth, and wood proper for producing fire by friction, a water-jar, and in a cellar-like hole, whose opening was covered with stones and so concealed from any but a practised eye, there were some cakes of hard bread, and several pots.  In one of these were some good dates, in another gleamed some white meal, a third was half full of sesame-oil, and a fourth held some salt.

“How lucky it is,” muttered the anchorite, as he quitted the cave, “that the old anchorite was such a glutton.”

By the time he returned to Sirona, the sun was going down.

There was something in the nature and demeanor of Paulus, which made all distrust of him impossible, and Sirona was ready to follow him, but she felt so weak that she could scarcely support herself on her feet.

“I feel,” she said, “as if I were a little child, and must begin again to learn to walk.”

“Then let me be your nurse.  I knew a Spartan dame once, who had a beard almost as rough as mine.  Lean confidently on me, and before we go down the slope, we will go up and down the level here two or three times.”  She took his arm, and he led her slowly up and down.