There were many reasons which might have made him resolve to stand in the
way of a meeting between the lady and the young man, but not one of them
occurred to him, and though he did not even dream that a feeling akin to
jealousy had begun to influence him, still he was conscious that it was
his lively repugnance to seeing the two sink into each other's arms
before his very eyes, that prompted him to turn shortly round, to take up
the body of the little dog, and to say to the enquirer:

"It is true, I do know where she is hiding, and when the time comes you
shall know it too. Now I must bury the animal, and if you will you can
help me."

Without waiting for any objection on Polykarp's part, he hurried from
stone to stone up to the plateau on the precipitous edge of which he had
first seen Sirona. The younger man followed him breathlessly, and only
joined him when he had already begun to dig out the earth with his hands
at the foot of a cliff. Polykarp was now standing close to the
anchorite, and repeated his question with vehement eagerness, but Paulus
did not look up from his work, and only said, digging faster and faster:

"Come to this place again to-morrow, and then it may perhaps be possible
that I should tell you."

"You think to put me off with that," cried the lad. "Then you are
mistaken in me, and if you cheat me with your honest-sounding words, I
will--"

But he did not end his threat, for a clear longing cry distinctly broke
the silence of the deserted mountain: "Polykarp--Polykarp." It sounded
nearer and nearer, and the words had a magic effect on him for whose ear