eces. "We got that to-day, and if all is
well. . . . " Here she paused, pointed to the curtain, and went on again
in a lower tone: "It all depends of course, on Agne's playing us no
trick."

"How so? Why? She is a good girl and I will. . ."

"No, no," said Herse holding him back. "She does not know yet what the
business is. The lady wants her. . ."

"Well?"

"To sing in the Temple of Isis."

Karnis colored. He was suddenly called from a lovely dream back to the
squalid reality. "In the Temple of Isis," he said gloomily. "Agne? In the
face of all the people? And she knows nothing about it?"

"Nothing, father."

"No? Well then, if that is the case . . . Agne, the Christian, in the
Temple of Isis--here, here, where Bishop Theophilus is destroying all our
sanctuaries and the monks outdo their master. Ah, children, children, how
pretty and round and bright a soap-bubble is, and how soon it bursts. Do
you know at all what it is that you are planning? If the black flies
smell it out and it becomes known, by the great Apollo! we should have
fared better at the hands of the pirates. And yet, and yet.--Do you know
at all how the girl . . . ?"

"She wept at the lady's singing," interrupted Herse eagerly, "and, silent
as she generally is, on her way home she said: 'To sing like that! She is
a happy girl!'"

Karnis looked up with renewed confidence.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "that is my Agne. Yes, yes, she truly loves her
divine art. She can sing, she will sing! We will venture it, if you, I,
all of us die for it!

"Herse, Orpheus, what have we to lose? Our gods, too, shall have their
martyrs. It is a poor life that has no excitement. Our art--why, all I
have ever had has been devoted to it. I make no boast of having
sacrificed everything, and if gold and lands were again to be mine I
would become a beggar once more for the sake of art: We have always held
the divine Muse sacred, but who can keep up a brave heart when he sees
her persecuted! She may only be worshipped in darkness in these days, and
the Queen of Gods and men shuns the light like a moth, a bat, an owl. If
we must die let it be with and for Her! Once more let pure and perfect
song rejoice this old heart, and if afterwards . . . My children, we have
no place in this dim, colorless world. While the Arts lived there was
Spring on the earth. Now they are condemned to death and it is Winter.
The leaves fall from all the trees, and we piping birds need groves to
si