“Forgive me for coming so late.  How long you must have been waiting!  But parting from my best friend, my second mother, agitated me so painfully—­it was so unspeakably sad.—­I did not know how to hold up my head, it ached so when I came home, and now—­oh, I had hoped that we might meet to-day so differently!”

“But even yesterday you had no time to spare for me,” he retorted sullenly, “and this morning—­you were present when Rufinus invited me—­this morning!—­I am not exacting, and to you, good God!  How could I be?—­But have we not to part, to bid each other farewell—­perhaps for ever?  Why should you have given up so much time and strength to your friend, that so scanty a remnant is left for the lover?  That is an unfair division.”

“How could I deny it?” she said with melancholy entreaty.  “You are indeed very right; but I could not leave the child last evening, as soon as she came, and while she was weeping out all her sorrows; and if you only knew how surprised and grieved I was—­how my heart ached when, instead of finding you, your note. . . .”

“I was obliged to go to Amru,” interrupted Orion.  “This undertaking compels me to leave much behind, and I am no longer the freest of the free, as I used to be.  During this dreadful breakfast I have been sitting on thorns.  But let all that pass.  I came hither with a heart high with hope—­and now?—­You see, Paula, this enterprise tears me in two in more ways than you can imagine, puts me into a more critical position, and weighs more on my mind than you can think or know—­I will explain it all to you at another time—­and to bear it all, to keep up the spirit and happy energy that I need, I must be secure of the one thing for which I could take far greater toil and danger as mere child’s play; I must know. . . .”

“You must know,” she interposed, “whether my heart is fully and wholly open to your love. . . .”

“And whether,” he added, with growing ardor, “in spite of the bitter suffering that weighs on my wretched soul, I may hope to be happier than the saints in bliss.  O Paula, adored and only woman, may I. . . .”

“You may,” she said clearly and fervently.  “I love you, Orion, and shall never, never cease to love you with my whole soul.”

He flew to her side, clasped both her hands as if beside himself, snatched them to his lips regardless of the nearness of the house, whence ten pairs of eyes might have seen him, and covered them with burning kisses, till she drew them from him with the entreaty:  “No, no; forbear, I entreat you.  No—­not now.”

“Yes, now, at this very moment—­or, if not, when?” he asked vehemently.  “But here, in this garden—­you are right, this is no place for two human beings so happy as we are.  Come with me; come into the house and lead the way to a spot where we may be unseen and unheard, alone with each other and our happiness.”

“No, no, no!” she hastily put in, pressing her hand to her aching brow.  “Come with me to the bench under the sycamore; it is shady there, and you can tell me everything, and hear once more how entirely love has taken possession of me.”