Orion was now alone; he ground his teeth with rage.  Paula had betrayed him in spite of her promise, and how mean was her woman’s cunning!  She could be silent before the judges—­yes.  Silent in all confidence now, to the very last; but the nurse, her mouthpiece, had already put Nilus, the keenest and most important member of the court, in possession of the evidence which spoke for her and against him.  It was shocking, disgraceful!  Base and deliberately malicious treachery.  But the end was not yet:  he still was free to act and to ward off the spiteful stroke by a counterthrust.  How it should be dealt was clear from Perpetua’s statement; but his conscience, his instincts and long habits of submission to what was right, good, and fitting held him back.  Not only had he never himself done a base or a mean action; he loathed it in another, and the only thing he could do to render Paula’s perfidy harmless was, as he could not deny, original and bold, but at the same time detestable and shameful.

Still, he could not and he would not succumb in this struggle.  Time pressed.  Long reflection was impossible; suddenly he felt carried away by a fierce and mad longing to fight it out—­he felt as he had felt on. a race-day in the hippodrome, when he had driven his own quadriga ahead of all the rest.

Onwards, then, onwards; and if the chariot were wrecked, if the horses were killed, if his wheels maimed his comrades overthrown in the arena-still, onwards, onwards!

A few hasty steps brought him to the lodge of the gate-keeper, a sturdy old man who had held his post for forty years.  He had formerly been a locksmith and it still was part of his duty to undertake the repairs of the simple household utensils.  Orion as a youth had been a beautiful and engaging boy and a great favorite with this worthy man; he had delighted in sitting in his little room and handing him the tools for his work.  He himself had remarkable mechanical facility and had been the old man’s apt pupil; nay, he had made such progress as to be able to carve pretty little boxes, prayer-book cases, and such like, and provide them with locks, as gifts to his parents on their birth days—­a festival always kept with peculiar solemnity in Egypt, and marked by giving and receiving presents.  He understood the use of tools, and he now hastily selected such as he needed.  On the window-ledge stood a bunch of flowers which he had ordered for Paula the day before, and which he had forgotten to fetch this terrible morning.  With this in one hand, and the tools in the breast of his robe he hastened upstairs.

“Onwards, I must keep on!” he muttered, as he entered Paula’s room, bolted the door inside and, kneeling before her chest, tossed the flowers aside.  If he was discovered, he would say that he had gone into his cousin’s chamber to give her the bouquet.