s
continuance--"

"That is just what brings me into a state of indecision, which is
usually foreign to my nature," interrupted Dion. "You know me and
my position in the world, and you have also known from her earliest
childhood the woman to whom I allude."

"Iras?" asked his companion, hesitatingly. His sister, Charmian, had
told him of the love felt by the Queen's younger waiting-woman.

But Dion eagerly denied this, adding I am speaking of Barine, the
daughter of your dead friend Leonax. "I love her, yet my pride is
sensitive, and I know that it will extend to my future wife. The
contemptuous glances which others might cast at her I should scorn,
for I know her worth. Surely you remember my mother: she was a very
different woman. Her house, her child, the slaves, her loom, were
everything to her. She rigidly exacted from other women the chaste
reserve which was a marked trait in her own character. Yet she was
gentle, and loved me, her only son, beyond aught else. I think she would
have opened her arms to Barine, had she believed that she was necessary
to my happiness. But would the young beauty, accustomed to gay
intercourse with distinguished men, have been able to submit to her
demands? When I consider that she cannot help taking into her married
life the habit of being surrounded and courted; when I think that the
imprudence of a woman accustomed to perfect freedom might set idle
tongues in motion, and cast a shadow upon the radiant purity of my name;
when I even--" and he raised his clenched right hand. But Archibius
answered soothingly:

"That anxiety is groundless if Barine warmly and joyfully gives you her
whole heart. It is a sunny, lovable, true woman's heart, and therefore
capable of a great love. If she bestows it on you--and I believe she
will--go and offer sacrifices in your gratitude; for the immortals
desired your happiness when they guided your choice to her and not to
Iras, my own sister's child. If you were really my son, I would now
exclaim, 'You could not bring me a dearer daughter, if--I repeat it--if
you are sure of her love.'"

Dion gazed into vacancy a short time, and then cried firmly: "I am!"

CHAPTER VIII.

The Epicurus anchored before the Temple of Poseidon. The crew had been
ordered to keep silence, though they knew nothing, except that a letter
from Antony, commanding the erection of a wall, had been found on board
the pirate. This might be regarded as a good omen, for peop