th both arms outstretched, to the armchair he had
quitted.

If he could only have seen Daphne press her handkerchief first to her
eyes, from which tears were streaming, and then to her lips, that he
might not hear her sobs, if he could have perceived how Thyone's wrinkled
old face contracted as if she were swallowing a colocynth apple, while at
the same time she patted his strong shoulder briskly, exclaiming with
forced cheerfulness: "Go on, my boy! The steed rears when the hornet
stings! Try again, if it only soothes you! We will take everything out of
your way. You need not mind the water-jars. The potter will make new
ones!"

Then Hermon threw back his burning head, rested it against the back of
the chair, and did not stir until the bandage was renewed.

How comfortable it felt!

He knew, too, that he owed it to Daphne; the matron's fingers could not
be so slender and delicate, and he would have been more than glad to
raise them to his lips and thank her; but he denied himself the pleasure.

If she really did love him, the bond between them must now be severed;
for, even if her goodness of heart extended far enough to induce her to
unite her blooming young existence to his crippled one, how could he have
accepted the sacrifice without humiliating himself? Whether such a
marriage would have made her happy or miserable he did not ask, but he
was all the more keenly aware that if, in this condition, he became her
husband, he would be the recipient of alms, and he would far rather, he
mentally repeated, share the fate of the negro at the handmill.

The expression of his features revealed the current of his thoughts to
Daphne, and, much as she wished to speak to him, she forced herself to
remain silent, that the tones of her voice might not betray how deeply
she was suffering with him; but he himself now longed for a kind word
from her lips, and he had just asked if she was still there when Thyone
announced a visit from the grammateus Proclus.

He had recently felt that this man was unfriendly to him, and again his
anger burst forth. To be exposed in the midst of his misery to the scorn
of a despiser of his art was too much for his exhausted patience.

But here he was interrupted by Proclus himself, who had entered the
darkened cabin where the blind man remained very soon after Thyone.

Hermon's last words had betrayed to the experienced courtier how well he
remembered his unkind remarks, so he deferred the expre