“Patience, sweetheart, a little patience!” urged the nurse.  “Ah, poor dear soul, it will turn out to be nothing again; and if we again follow up a false clue it will only lead to fresh disappointment.”

“Never mind:  you are to come with me.”

“To all the servants round the fire, and at this time of night?  I should think so indeed!—­But do you wait here, child.  I know how it can be managed.

“I will wake Hiram’s Joseph.  He sleeps in the stable yonder—­and then he will fetch his father.  Ah! what impatience!  What a stormy, passionate little heart it is!  If I do not do your bidding, I shall have you awake all night, and wandering about to-morrow as if in a dream.—­There, be quiet, be quiet, I am going.”

As she spoke she wrapped her kerchief round her head and hurried out; Paula fell on her knees before the crucifix over the bed, and prayed fervently till her nurse returned, Soon after she heard a man’s steps on the stairs and Hiram came in.

He was a powerful man of about fifty, with a pair of honest blue eyes in his plain face.  Any one looking at his broad chest would conclude that when he spoke it would be in a deep bass voice; but Hiram had stammered from his infancy; and from constant companionship with horses he had accustomed himself to make a variety of strange, inarticulate noises in a high, shrill voice.  Besides, he was always unwilling to speak.  When he found himself face to face with the daughter of his master and benefactor, he knelt at her feet, looked up at her with faithful, dog-like eyes full of affection, and kissed first her dress, and then her hand which she held out to him.  Paula kindly but decidedly cut short the expressions of delight at seeing her again which he painfully stammered out; and when he at length began to tell his story his words came far too slowly for her impatience.

He told her that the Nabathaean who had brought the rumor that had excited her hopes, was not unwilling to follow up the trace he had found, but he would not wait beyond noon the next day and had tried to bid for high terms.

“He shall have them—­as much as he wants!” cried Paula.  But Hiram entreated her, more by looks and vague cries than by articulate words, not to hope for too much.  Dusare the Nabathaean—­Perpetua now took up the tale—­had heard of a recluse, living at Raithu on the Red Sea, who had been a great warrior, by birth a Greek, and who for two years had been leading a life of penance in great seclusion among the pious brethren on the sacred Mount of Sinai.  The messenger had not been able to learn what his name in the world had been, but among the hermits he was known as Paulus.”

“Paulus!” interrupted the girl with panting breath.  “A name that must remind him of my mother and of me, yes, of me!  And he, the hero of Damascus, who was called Thomas in the world, believing that I was dead, has no doubt dedicated himself to the service of God and of Christ, and has taken the name of Paulus, as Saul, the other man of Damascus did after his con version,—­exactly like him!  Oh!  Betta, Hiram, you will see:  it is he, it must be!  How can you doubt it?”