no more. In the Serapeum she had not mentioned it, by the physician's
orders; and now, in addition, through the indiscretion of a friend, he
had received some terrible tidings which had already been known for some
hours in the city and which dealt him a serious blow. His two sons were
in Thessalonica, and a ship, just arrived from thence, brought the
news-only too well substantiated, that fifteen thousand of the
inhabitants of that town had been treacherously assassinated in the
Circus there.

This hideous massacre had been carried out by the Imperial troops at
Caesar's command, the wretched citizens having been bidden to witness the
races and then ruthlessly butchered. A general of the Imperial army--a
Goth named Botheric--had been killed by the mob, and the Emperor had thus
avenged his death.

Porphyrius knew only too well that his sons would never have been absent
from any races or games. They certainly must have been among the
spectators and have fallen victims to the sword of the slaughterer. His
mother and two noble sons were snatched from him in a day; and he would
again have had recourse to poison as a refuge from all, if a dim ray of
hope had not permitted him to believe in their escape. But all the same
he was sunk in despair, and behaved as though he had nothing on earth
left to live for. Gorgo tried to console him, encouraged his belief in
her brothers' possible safety, reminded him that it was the duty of a
philosopher to bear the strokes of Fate with fortitude; but he would not
listen to her, and only varied his lamentations with bursts of rage.

At last he said he wished to be alone and reminded Gorgo that she ought
to go to Dada. His daughter obeyed, but against her will; in spite of all
that Demetrius had said in the young girl's favor she felt a little shy
of her, and in approaching her more closely she had something of the
feeling of a fine lady who condescends to enter the squalid hovel of
poverty. But her father was right: Dada was her guest and she must treat
her with kindness.

Outside the door of the music-room she dried away her tears for her
brothers, for her emotion seemed to her too sacred to be confessed to a
creature who boldly defied the laws laid down by custom for the conduct
of women. From Dada's appearance she felt sure that all those lofty
ideas, which she herself had been taught to call "moral dignity" and "a
yearning for the highest things," must be quite foreign to this girl w