visible in the
half-light of the holy of holies; and a ray of light, flashing through
the darkness as by a miracle, would fall upon his brow and kiss his lips
when his goodness was sung by the priests in hymns of praise. At other
times the tapers by the side of the god would be lighted or extinguished
spontaneously.

Then, with the other believers, she would glorify the great lord of the
other world, who caused a new sun to succeed each that was extinguished,
and made life grow up out of death; who resuscitated the dead, lifting
them up to be equal with him, if on earth they had reverenced truth and
were found faithful by the judges of the nether world.

Truth--which her father had taught her to regard as the best possession
of life--was rewarded by Serapis above all other virtues; hearts were
weighed before him in a scale against truth, and whenever Klea tried to
picture the god in human form he wore the grave and mild features of her
father, and she fancied him speaking in the words and tones of the man
to whom she owed her being, who had been too early snatched from her,
who had endured so much for righteousness' sake, and from whose lips
she had never heard a single word that might not have beseemed the god
himself. And, as she crouched closely in the dark angle by the holy of
holies, she felt herself nearer to her father as well as to the god, and
accused herself pitilessly, in that unmaidenly longings had stirred her
heart, that she had been insincere to herself and Irene, nay in that if
she could not succeed in tearing the image of the Roman from her heart
she would be compelled either to deceive her sister or to sadden the
innocent and careless nature of the impressionable child, whom she
was accustomed to succor and cherish as a mother might. On her, even
apparently light matters weighed oppressively, while Irene could throw
off even grave and serious things, blowing them off as it were into the
air, like a feather. She was like wet clay on which even the light touch
of a butterfly leaves a mark, her sister like a mirror from which the
breath that has dimmed it instantly and entirely vanishes.

"Great God!" she murmured in her prayer, "I feel as if the Roman had
branded my very soul. Help thou me to efface the mark; help me to
become as I was before, so that I may look again in Irene's eyes without
concealment, pure and true, and that I may be able to say to myself,
as I was wont, that I had thought and acte