Then seeing Raie’s figure framed in the doorway, he spoke of something else, but not before the girl had had time to hear. “Ferdie will have to be careful when he comes back, or he will be discovered,” she thought, as she advanced farther into the room. It was a very difficult matter to elude the lynx-like eye of the old nurse, Anne. CHAPTER IV GOVERNOR OF HAIFA Montella was alone in his study, with books and papers scattered on the table before him; but although he was apparently reading, very little of the printed matter penetrated so far as his brain. Deep in thought, his brow was furrowed with lines which should not have appeared on the forehead of so young a man; indeed, his whole appearance bore evidence to the fact that he had been severely tried. It was possible that the responsibility of governing the English portion of Palestine weighed too heavily upon his shoulders, or that he took upon himself more than was absolutely necessary for the welfare of his people. Certain it was that his energies were boundless, and that nothing was too great for him to achieve; but he could not spend himself without losing some of his inherent vitality, and while he was indefatigable in his efforts for the public good, his own health suffered from lack of care. There is nothing which ages a human being so quickly as worry; and of this Montella had his share. The race for wealth among the Europeans in Palestine was keener even than it had been in the West, and the unscrupulous greed of the people, who, in the ardour of competition would financially cut each other’s throats, grieved him more than he cared to own. Not satisfied with comfort and peace in the new land, their one desire was to attain to wealth, the means to which entailed the cost of suffering to hundreds less fortunate than themselves. To Montella it was like a disease, sapping the moral strength of the people at the very root; but neither he nor his colleagues were able to conquer it; all they could do was to deprecate the evil.