however, maintained
stoutly that it was merely by an unfortunate accident that the stone had
hit Diodoros and cut his head so badly. She would not have quitted her
lover but that she feared lest her prolonged absence should have alarmed
her father.

Heron at last stood still for a minute or two, lost in thought, and then
brought out of his chest a casket, from which he took a few engraved
gems. He held them carefully up to the light, and asked his daughter:
"If I learn from Polybius, to whom I am now going, that they have
already caught Alexander, should I venture now, do you think, to offer
a couple of choice gems to Titianus, the prefect, to set him free again?
He knows what is good, and the captain of the watch is his subordinate."

But Melissa besought him to give up the idea of seeking out Alexander in
his hiding-place; for Heron, the gem-cutter, was known to every one,
and if a man-at-arms should see him he would certainly follow him. As
regarded the prefect, he would not apprehend any one this day, for,
as her father knew, Caesar was to arrive at Alexandria at noon, and
Titianus must be on the spot to meet him with all his train.

"But if you want to be out of doors and doing," she added, "go to see
Philip. Bring him to reason, and discuss with him what is to be done."

She spoke with firm decision, and Heron looked with amazement at the
giver of this counsel. Melissa had hitherto cared for his comfort in
silence, without expressing any opinions of her own, and submitting to
be the lightning-conductor for all his evil tempers. He did not rate her
girlish beauty very high, for there were no ugly faces in his family
nor in that of his deceased Olympias. And all the other consolations she
offered him he took as a matter of course--nay, he sometimes made them a
ground of complaint; for he would occasionally fancy that she wanted to
assume the place of his beloved lost wife, and he regarded it as a duty
to her to show his daughter, and often very harshly and unkindly, how
far she was from filling her mother's place.

Thus she had accustomed herself to do her duty as a daughter, with quiet
and wordless exactitude, looking for no thanks; while he thought he was
doing her a kindness merely by suffering her constant presence. That he
should ever exchange ideas with his daughter, or ask her opinion, would
have seemed to Heron absolutely impossible; yet it had come to this,
and for the second time this morning he looked