She raised her head and reproach flashed through the meshes of her veil. "Momus is a good man," she said. "He can not be," he insisted. "Have I not set forth his iniquities even now?" "It was a short task," she maintained. "But time is not long enough to count his virtues." "I can spend time better," he declared. He saw her silken brows lower in a spirited frown and he was glad. She was showing some other feeling than that dead level of unhappiness that had possessed her from the first moment he had seen her. His was not the heart contented to go astray after a tear. Men fall in search of joy. "Momus is carrying a burden under which more brilliant men would falter," she averred. "I am beyond reckoning his debtor!" "Since he has shifted that sweet burden for a time on my shoulders, I will forgive him for his looks. If he will stay away, I'll be his debtor further. But enough of Momus! I came to ask after your health, when your long journey by night is done." "I am well; we did not journey all night." "Sit, I pray you. There is no need for you to stand with that air of finality. I am not going, yet. I went back to your camp last night within a short time after I left you and found the camp broken and your fire lonely. I wanted to offer you my horse." "We did not walk all night. We camped a little farther on, and moved at daybreak this morning," she explained. He cast a reflective look at the sun and considered how much time Julian of Ephesus had lost for him upon the road, or else how long he had slept, that this pair, who had camped all night and had journeyed afoot by day, had caught up with him. "Still it was a cruel journey--for those little feet," he said. She glanced involuntarily at her sandals, worn and dusty. "Yes," he said compassionately, following her eyes. "But let me see no more, else I meet this good and burdened Momus with the flat of my hand when he comes! What is he to you?" "My servant--now almost my father!" she insisted, trying to cover the tacit accusation that she had made in admitting by a glance that she was weary. "He orders all things for my good. Do you think that each of the stones over which I stumbled to-day did not hurt him worse because they hurt me? Do you think he would have me go on, unless the stake were worth the pain I had to endure? Say no more against him!" The Maccabee shrugged his shoulders; then noting that she still stood, he smoothed down a spot of the sand with his foot, tossed upon it one of the sheepskins that Momus had unrolled, and extending his hand politely pressed her down on the place he had made. Then he dropped down beside her, lounging on his elbow. "What is the stake?" he asked after he had composed himself. She hesitated, regretting that her defense of Momus had led her to hint her mission and touch upon her husband's ambition. "The welfare of hosts!" she replied finally. "Heavens! What a menace I was!" the Maccabee smiled.