You must subdue your curiosity for a few days longer, and then it may easily happen that the man whose very aspect makes you feel dirty--the bat, the toad--" "Let that pass now," cried Polykarp.

"Perhaps the excitement which the sight of you stirred up in my bruised and wounded heart, led me to use unseemly language.

Now, indeed, I see that your matted hair sits round a well featured countenance.

Forgive my violent and unjust attack.

I was beside myself, and I opened my whole soul to you, and now that you know how it is with me, once more I ask you, where is Sirona ?" Polykarp looked Paulus in the face with anxious and urgent entreaty, pointing to the dog as much as to say, "You must know, for here is the evidence." The Alexandrian hesitated to answer; he glanced by chance at the entrance of the cave, and seeing the gleam of Sirona's white robe behind the palm-branches, he said to himself that if Polykarp lingered much longer, he could not fail to discover her--a consummation to be avoided.
There were many reasons which might have made him resolve to stand in the way of a meeting between the lady and the young man, but not one of them occurred to him, and though he did not even dream that a feeling akin to jealousy had begun to influence him, still he was conscious that it was his lively repugnance to seeing the two sink into each other's arms before his very eyes, that prompted him to turn shortly round, to take up the body of the little dog, and to say to the enquirer: "It is true, I do know where she is hiding, and when the time comes you shall know it too.