hearts.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Aspect obnoxious to the gaze will pour water on the fire
Everything that exists moves onward to destruction and decay
Trouble does not enhance beauty

CLEOPATRA

By Georg Ebers

Volume 5.

CHAPTER XII.

Barine had been an hour in the palace. The magnificently furnished room
to which she was conducted was directly above the council chamber, and
sometimes, in the silence of the night, the voice of the Queen or the
loud cheers of men were distinctly heard.

Barine listened without making the slightest effort to catch the meaning
of the words which reached her ears. She longed only for something to
divert her thoughts from the deep and bitter emotion which filled her
soul. Ay, she was roused to fury, and yet she felt how completely this
passionate resentment contradicted her whole nature.

True, the shameless conduct of Philostratus during their married life had
often stirred the inmost depths of her placid, kindly spirit, and after
wards his brother Alexas had come to drive her, by his disgraceful
proposals, to the verge of despair; rage was added to the passionate
agitation of her soul, and for this she had cause to rejoice--but for
this mighty resentment during the time of struggle she might have,
perhaps, succumbed from sheer weariness and the yearning desire to rest.

At last, at last, she and her friends, by means of great sacrifices, had
succeeded in releasing her from these tortures. Philostratus's consent to
liberate her was purchased. Alexas's persecution had ceased long before;
he had first been sent away as envoy by his patron Antony, and afterwards
been compelled to accompany him to the war.

How she had enjoyed the peaceful days in her mother's house! How quickly
the bright cheerfulness which she had supposed lost had returned to her
soul!--and to-day Fate had blessed her with the greatest happiness life
had ever offered. True, she had had only a few brief hours in which to
enjoy it, for the attack of the unbridled boys and the wound inflicted
upon her lover had cast a heavy shadow on her bliss.

Her mother had again proved to be in the right when she so confidently
predicted a second misfortune which would follow the first only too soon.

Barine had been torn at midnight from her peaceful home and her wounded
lover's bedside. This was done by the Queen's command, and, full of angry
excitement, she said to herself that the