And so the weary hours passed slowly, and, at last, came Theckla and Arius home; and the girl, bounding into her mother’s room, cast her arms about her and kissed her passionately. And when the mother broke out into renewed wailings, the daughter said: "Nay, mother, why dost thou lament so bitterly? Surely thou art much better now, and father will soon return to comfort thee. Cheer up thyself with the hope of speedily returning health and strength." "Alas! alas! thy father will return no more!--no more! Ah, nevermore!" Then with startled, wondering eyes, the young girl gazed into her mother’s face, crying out: "What meanest thou? He hath always come back from every absence joyously; why sayst thou ’No more--ah, never, more,’ so sorrowfully? Surely he must again return to us!" Then it seemed apparent enough that these Egyptians had such an awful terror of death, and the girl had been so carefully guarded against all knowledge thereof, that she could scarcely realize what thing was meant thereby; for the Egyptians said nothing of "death," but only, "He hath gone hence," or "He is the Hesiri justified." "He is dead, poor child!" moaned the mother, "swallowed up forever by the cruel, unrelenting sea! Thou wilt see his face, and hear his voice, and spring to meet his fond caress no more," she wailed--"no more!" "Is he, then, the Hesiri justified?" she asked, a nameless wonder and terror taking hold upon her soul. "Oh, thou wilt break all my heart!" she answered. "He hath died without a sarcophagus and the mummy-cloth. How shall he, then, dare to meet the dreadful Ma-t in the dark hall wherein she sitteth as the Two Truths, judge of all the dead?" Then the full desolation of her father’s awful fate, and of her own mighty loss, for the first time swept her young heart with terrible distinctness, and, sinking down beside her mother, the girl blended her broken-hearted wailings with the woman’s bitter cries. "Leave them together," said Arete, and she and old Thopt quietly withdrew. And she informed Ammonius of the sorrowful condition of their guests, and, with her dark eyes full of sympathetic tears, she said, "It is a harrowing grief, and I was so young when I became a Christian, and view death so differently from them, that I know not how to offer consolation for such sorrow." "Thou shalt leave them alone for the present," answered Ammonius. "The Egyptians have no consolation except those which their erroneous faith buildeth upon the sarcophagus and the mummy-rites--all external consolations--of which, in such a case as this, they are deprived. Let them alone. Perhaps the Lord will show us some way to aid them, or their violent grief will wear out itself in lamentations. All thou canst do is but to wait and hope."