e child--Barine?"

But when Philotas's sole reply to this question was a silent shake of
the head, indignation conquered the old philosopher, and clutching
his pupil's chiton with both hands, he shook him violently, exclaiming
furiously:

"You don't know, scoundrel? Instead of defending her who should be dear
to you as a child of this household, you joined the rascally scorners of
morality and law as the accomplice of this waylayer in purple!"

Here the architect soothed the enraged old man with expostulations,
and the assertion that everything must now yield to the necessity of
searching for Barine and Dion. He did not know which way to turn, in the
amount of labour pressing upon him, but he would have a hasty talk with
the foreman and then try to find his friend.

"And I," cried the old man, "must go at once to the unfortunate
child.-My cloak, Phryx, my sandals!"

In spite of Gorgias's counsel to remember his age and the inclement
weather, he cried angrily:

"I am going, I say! If the tempest hurls me to the earth, and the bolts
of Zeus strike me, so be it. One misfortune more or less matters little
in a life which has been a chain of heavy blows of Fate. I buried three
sons in the prime of manhood, and two have been slain in battle. Barine,
the joy of my heart, I myself, fool that I was, bound to the scoundrel
who blasted her joyous existence; and now that I believed she would
be protected from trouble and misconstruction by the side of a worthy
husband, these infamous rascals, whose birth protects them from
vengeance, have wounded, perhaps killed her betrothed lover. They
trample in the dust her fair name and my white hair!--Phryx, my hat and
staff."

The storm had long been raging around the house, which stood close by
the sea, and the sailcloth awning which was stretched over the impluvium
noisily rattled the metal rings that confined it. Now so violent a gust
swept from room to room that two of the flames in the three-branched
lamp went out. The door of the house had been opened, and drenched
with rain, a hood drawn over his black head, Barine's Nubian doorkeeper
crossed the threshold.

He presented a pitiable spectacle and at first could find no answer to
the greetings and questions of the men, who had been joined by Helena,
her grandmother leaning on her arm; his rapid walk against the fury of
the storm had fairly taken away his breath.

He had little, however, to tell. Barine merely sent a message t