This was probably the happiest, or at least the most successful, period of her career. Her ambition was satisfied--she felt herself a power; her pride received no wounds, and her will no check. But by degrees clouds gathered on the horizon: her subjects, if ever they were her subjects, grew impatient of a rule which did not fulfil their longings after military empire. Her immense expenditure told upon her fortune, and its gradual diminution compelled her to withhold the presents she had formerly bestowed with so lavish a hand. She awoke at last to a perception of the hollowness of her authority. Meanwhile, many of the attendants who had accompanied her from Europe died; others returned to their native country. She was left almost alone in her Lebanon retreat, with only the shadow of her former power. The sense of failure must have been very bitter, but she bore herself with all her wonted pride, and made neither complaint nor confession. Without bestowing a regret on the past, she encountered misfortune and ingratitude with a composed countenance, facing them as fearlessly as she had faced the Bedawun of the desert. She yielded nothing, either to the old age which was creeping upon her, or the desertion of the ungrateful wretches who had profited so largely by her generosity. Alone she lived, with the great mountain peaks closing in upon her remote abode--without books, without friends; attended by a few young negresses, a few black slaves, and a handful of Arab peasants, who took charge of her gardens and stables, and watched over the safety of her person. The love of power, however, was still strong within her, and as her worldly authority slipped away, she endeavoured to replace it by a spiritual. The energy of her temper and the extraordinary force of her character found expression in exalted religious ideas, in which the "illuminationism" of Europe was strangely blended with the subtleties of the Oriental faiths and the mysteries of mediaeval astrology. To what extreme they carried her it is difficult to say. It has been hinted that she dreamed of being united in a nuptial union with her Saviour, reviving the old illusion of St. Catherine of Siena. There is no doubt that at times she claimed to be the possessor of divine power; there is no doubt that she was not always a believer in her own claims. Her intellect was too strong for her imagination. As Miss Martineau remarks, "She saw and knew things which others could not see or know; she had curious glimpses of prescience; but she could not depend upon her powers, nor always separate realities from mere dreams." * * * * * Occasionally a visitor from the active world of the West broke in upon her loneliness--but only by permission--and, if he were a man of quick sympathies, would draw her out of herself. Her revelations, under such circumstances, were always of deep interest.