Mariam had no wise words of comfort to give her child; but she had the mother's secret of love, which so often is better than wisdom. She folded Shushan tenderly in her arms and kissed her. Then the girl recovered a little. "I ought not to talk so to you, mother," she said. "We know He does care." "Amaan! God is good," Mariam said. "He cares for every one; even, I suppose, for the Turks." There was a silence during which Mariam resumed her spinning, and Shushan her embroidery. "I am not easy about the grandfather," Mariam said presently. "I wish we could get him to eat a little more. Since the fright about thee, and the loss of his flocks and herds, he has scarcely been his own man. And that last visit of the zaptiehs did him no good--What is that noise in the court? Some one has come." The whirr of the spinning wheel ceased, and Shushan dropped her work, growing very pale. Neither thought of going forth to see, for neither expected any good thing to come to them. Shushan would have hidden herself, but there did not seem time; so they sat in silence, listening to a confused Babel of sounds outside. But presently both cried at once,-- "The voice of Kevork, my son." "The voice of Yon Effendi, my betrothed." "Cover yourself, my daughter," said Mariam hastily. And Shushan veiled her face, and sat still where she was, while the mother went forth to welcome her son, whom she had not seen for more than eighteen months. That night, for once, the voice of joy and thankfulness was heard in the house of Hohannes Meneshian. Jack had taken Kevork into council over the communication made to him by the wife of Thomassian. The two young men had agreed that no time was to be lost in returning to Biridjik and bringing Shushan back with them to Urfa, even if they had to disguise her for the purpose as a boy. Thinking the knowledge of their plan might imperil the Vartonians, they did not tell them of it. They told no one in fact except Miss Celandine, whose promise to receive and shelter Shushan was readily given.