Arsinoe looked down, for she knew what these treasures were worth, and said:
"We can consider all that later."
Then she and her father got into the litters that had been waiting for them, and without which Keraunus thought he could no longer exist, and they were carried to the garden of Pudeus' widow.
Their visit came to interrupt Selene's blissful dreams. Keraunus behaved with icy coldness to dame Hannah, for it afforded him a certain satisfaction to make a display of contempt for every thing Christian. When he expressed his regret that Selene should have been obliged to remain in her house, the widow replied:
"She is better here than in the street, at any rate." And when Keraunus went on to say that he would take nothing as a gift and would pay her for her care of his daughter, Hannah answered:
"We are happy to do all we can for your child, and Another will reward us."
"That I certainly forbid," exclaimed the steward wrathfully.
"We do not understand each other," said the Christian pleasantly. "I do not allude to any mortal being, and the reward we work for is not gold and possessions, but the happy consciousness of having mitigated the sufferings of a fellow-creature."
Keraunus shrugged his shoulders, and after desiring Selene to ask the physician when she might be taken home, he went away.
"I will not leave you here an instant longer than is necessary," he said as urgently as though she were in some infected house; he kissed her forehead, bowed to Hannah as loftily as though he had just bestowed an alms upon her, and departed, without listening to Selene's assurances that she was extremely happy and comfortable with the widow.