"Hath he kin in the city?"
"Nay, he is solitary."
Kenkenes walked away unsteadily. The nervous energy that had upborne him during his intense excitement was deserting him. His hunger and weariness were asserting themselves.
He turned down the narrow passage leading to his father's house. And suddenly, in the way of such vagrant thoughts, it occurred to him that the inscription on the tomb had been pointedly denied by the old woman's statements.
"Ah, I might have known," he said impatiently. "Rachel put the writing there for me when she left the tomb for the shelter Masanath offered her in Memphis."
The admission cheered him somewhat, but it did not repair his exhausted forces. By the time he reached his father's door he was unsteady, indeed, and beyond further exertion.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE MURKET'S SACRIFICE
The murket sat at his place in the work-room, but no papyrus scrolls lay before him; his fine implements were not in sight; the ink-pots and pens were put away and the table was clear except for a copper lamp that sputtered and flared at one end. The great artist's arms were extended across the table, his head bowed upon them, his hands clasped. The attitude was not that of weariness but of trouble.
Kenkenes hesitated. For the first time since the hour he left Memphis for Thebes, months before, he felt a sense of culpability. He realized, with great bounds of comprehension, that the results of his own trouble had not been confined to himself. He began to understand how infectious sorrow is.