Eulaeus had
told her that her Bithynian lover had been killed by wild beasts. She
rushed from one door to another--the victim of the avenging
Eumenides--shrieked from the window for rescue and help, and in that one
hour lived through a whole year of agonies and terrors.

At last--at last, the door of the room was opened, and Euergetes came
towards her, clad in the purple, with the crown of the two countries on
his grand head, radiant with triumph and delight.

"All hail to you, sister!" he exclaimed in a cheerful tone, and lifting
the heavy crown from his curling hair. "You ought to be proud to-day, for
your own brother has risen to high estate, and is now King of Upper and
Lower Egypt."

Cleopatra turned from him, but he followed her and tried to take her
hand. She however snatched it away, exclaiming:

"Fill up the measure of your deeds, and insult the woman whom you have
robbed and made a widow. It was with a prophecy on your lips that you
went forth just now to perpetrate your greatest crime; but it falls on
your own head, for you laugh over our misfortune--and it cannot regard
me, for my blood does not run cold; I am not overwhelmed nor hopeless,
and I shall--"

"You," interrupted Euergetes, at first with a loud voice, which presently
became as gentle as though he were revealing to her the prospect of a
future replete with enjoyment, "You shall retire to your roof-tent with
your children, and there you shall be read to as much as you like, eat as
many dainties as you can, wear as many splendid dresses as you can
desire, receive my visits and gossip with me as often as my society may
seem agreeable to you--as yours is to me now and at all times. Besides
all this you may display your sparkling wit before as many Greek and
Jewish men of letters or learning as you can command, till each and all
are dazzled to blindness. Perhaps even before that you may win back your
freedom, and with it a full treasury, a stable full of noble horses, and
a magnificent residence in the royal palace on the Bruchion in gay
Alexandria. It depends only on how soon our brother Philometor--who
fought like a lion this morning--perceives that he is more fit to be a
commander of horse, a lute-player, an attentive host of word-splitting
guests--than the ruler of a kingdom. Now, is it not worthy of note to
those who, like you and me, sister, love to investigate the phenomena of
our spiritual life, that this man--who in peace is as yielding a