She covered her face with her hands, and left the room. Rameri asked
Nefert:
What can have come to my sister? she seems quite strange to me; and you too are not the same as you used to be."
"We both have to find our way in new circumstances."
"What are they?"
"That I cannot explain to you!—but it appears to me that you soon may experience something of the same kind. Rumeri, do not go again to the paraschites."
CHAPTER XXXII.
Early on the following clay the dwarf Nemu went past the restored hut of Uarda's father—in which he had formerly lived with his wife—with a man in a long coarse robe, the steward of some noble family. They went towards old Hekt's cave-dwelling.
"I would beg thee to wait down here a moment, noble lord," said the dwarf, "while I announce thee to my mother."
"That sounds very grand," said the other. "However, so be it. But stay! The old woman is not to call me by my name or by my title. She is to call me 'steward'—that no one may know. But, indeed, no one would recognize me in this dress."
Nemu hastened to the cave, but before he reached his mother she called out: "Do not keep my lord waiting—I know him well."