nd
looked tenderly in Irene's eyes. She returned his gaze with heart-felt
emotion, but her gunny glance was dimmed with tears.

"Say something," entreated the Greek. "Will you not forget me? And may I
soon visit you in your new retreat?"

Irene would so gladly have said yes--and yes again, a thousand times
yes; and yet she, who was so easily carried away by every little emotion
of her heart, in this supreme moment found strength enough to snatch
her hand from that of the Greek, who had again taken it, and to answer
firmly:

"I will remember you for ever and ever, but you must not come to see me
till I am once more united to my Klea."

"But Irene, consider, if now--" cried Lysias much agitated.

"You swore to me by the heads of your nearest kin to obey my wishes,"
interrupted the girl. "Certainly I trust you, and all the more readily
because you are so good to me, but I shall not do so any more if you do
not keep your word. Look, here comes a lady to meet us who looks like
a friend. She is already waving her hand to me. Yes, I will go with her
gladly, and yet I am so anxious--so troubled, I cannot tell you--but I
am so thankful too! Think of me sometimes, Lysias, and of our journey
here, and of our talk, and of my parents: I entreat you, do for them all
you possibly can. I wish I could help crying--but I cannot!"

CHAPTER XV.

Lysias eyes had not deceived him. The chariot with white horses which he
had evaded during his flight with Irene belonged to Eulaeus. The morning
being cool--and also because Cleopatra's lady-in-waiting was with
him--he had come out in a closed chariot, in which he sat on soft
cushions side by side with the Macedonian lady, endeavoring to win her
good graces by a conversation, witty enough in its way.

"On the way there," thought he, "I will make her quite favorable to me,
and on the way back I will talk to her of my own affairs."

The drive passed quickly and pleasantly for both, and they neither of
them paid any heed to the sound of the hoofs of the horses that were
bearing away Irene.

Eulaeus dismounted behind the acacia-grove, and expressed a hope that
Zoe would not find the time very long while he was engaged with the
high-priest; perhaps indeed, he remarked, she might even make some use
of the time by making advances to the representative of Hebe.

But Irene had been long since warmly welcomed in the house of
Apollodorus, the sculptor, by the time they once more found them