A white turban covered her head, leaving the lobes of the ear exposed, and in them the sign that settled her condition--an orifice bored by a thick awl.

She was a slave, of Egyptian origin, to whom not even the sacred fiftieth year could have brought freedom; nor would she have accepted it, for the boy she was attending was her life.

She had nursed him through babyhood, tended him as a child, and could not break the service.

To her love he could never be a man.
He spoke but once during the meal.
"You remember, O my Amrah," he said, "the Messala who used to visit me here days at a time." "I remember him." "He went to Rome some years ago, and is now back.

I called upon him to-day." A shudder of disgust seized the lad.
"I knew something had happened," she said, deeply interested.
"I never liked the Messala.