comfort, and that was the thought that the
grave which had yawned already for her grandmother would soon, very soon,
open for herself and all living souls. On the table, close at hand, lay
the evidence of their impending doom, and a longing for that end
gradually took complete possession of her, excluding every other feeling.
Thinking of this she rose from her knees and ceased to weep.

When, presently, her waiting-woman should return, she was resolved to
leave the house at once; she could not bear to stay; her feelings and
duty alike indicated the place where she might find the last hour's
happiness that she expected or desired of life. Her father must learn
from herself, and not from a stranger, of the loss that had befallen
them, and she knew that he was in the Serapeum--on the very spot where
she might hope next morning to meet Constantine. It would be her lover's
duty to open the gate to destruction, and she would be there to pass
through it at his side.

She waited a long, long time, but at last there was a noise on the
stairs. That was her nurse's step, but she was not alone. Had she brought
the leech and the exorciser? The door opened and the old steward came in,
carrying a three-branched lamp; then followed the slave-woman, and
then--her heart stood still then came Constantine and his mother.

Gorgo, pale and speechless, received her unexpected visitors. The nurse
had failed to find the physician, whose aid would, at any rate, have come
too late; and as the housekeeper had taken herself off with others of the
Christian slaves, the faithful soul had said to herself that "her child"
would want some womanly help and comfort in her trouble, and had gone to
the house of their neighbor Clemens, to entreat his wife to come with her
to see the dead, and visit her forlorn young mistress. Constantine, who
had come home a short time previously, had said nothing, but had
accompanied the two women.

While Constantine gazed with no unkindly feelings at the still face of
Damia--to whom, after all, he owed many a little debt of kindness--and
then turned to look at Gorgo who stood downcast, pale, and struggling to
breathe calmly, Dame Marianne tried to proffer a few words of
consolation. She warmly praised everything in the dead woman which was
not in her estimation absolutely reprobate and godless, and brought
forward all the comforting arguments which a pious Christian can command
for the edification and encouragement of