He strove earnestly to reflect upon the situation, but could not; his feelings constantly overwhelmed him.

There was a certain qualified pleasure in the assurance that his mother and sister were alive; and it mattered little that the foundation of the assurance was a mere inference.

That there was one person who could tell him where they were seemed to his hope so long deferred as if discovery were now close at hand.

These were mere causes of feeling; underlying them, it must be confessed he had a superstitious fancy that God was about to make ordination in his behalf, in which event faith whispered him to stand still.
Occasionally, referring to the words of Ilderim, he wondered whence the Arab derived his information about him; not from Malluch certainly; nor from Simonides, whose interests, all adverse, would hold him dumb.
Could Messala have been the informant?
No, no: disclosure might be dangerous in that quarter.

Conjecture was vain; at the same time, often as Ben-Hur was beaten back from the solution, he was consoled with the thought that whoever the person with the knowledge might be, he was a friend, and, being such, would reveal himself in good time.