, I
could not help dropping my glance upon her face. But she was stronger
than I. She gave me no last look. She kept her eyes steadfastly fixed on
the cruel stone above, and so I left her, knowing that it was best not
to tarry longer.

I came out from under the stone, and gave the sign to the engineers who
stood by the rams. The fires were taken away from their sides, and
the metal in them began to contract, and slowly the vast bulk of the
throne-stone began to creep down towards its bed.

But ah, so slowly! Gods! how my soul was torn as I watched and waited.

Yet I kept my face impassive, overlooking as any officer might a piece
of work which others were carrying out under his direction, and on which
his credit rested; and I stood gravely in my place till the rams had
let the stone come down on its final resting place, and had been carried
away by the engineers; and then I went round with the master architect
with his plumbline and level, whilst he tested this last piece of the
building and declared it perfect.

It was a useless form, this last, seeing that by calculation they knew
exactly how the stone must rest; but the guilds have their forms
and customs, and on these occasions of high ceremonial, they are
punctiliously carried out, because these middle-class people wish always
to appear mysterious and impressive to the poor vulgar folk who are
their inferiors. But perhaps I am hard there on them. A man who is
needlessly taken round to plumb and duly level the tomb where his love
lies buried living, may perhaps be excused by the assessors on high a
little spirit of bitterness.

I had gone up the steps to do my hateful work a man full of grief,
though outwardly unmoved. As I came down again I had a feeling of
incompleteness; it seemed as though half my inwards had been left behind
with Nais in the hollow of the stone, and their place was taken by a
void which ached wearily; but still I carried a passive face, and memory
that before all these private matters stood the command of the High
Council, which sat before the Ark of the Mysteries.

So I went and stood before Phorenice, and said the words which the
ancient forms prescribed concerning the carrying out of her wish.

"Then, now," she said, "I will give myself to you as wife. We are not as
others, you and I, Deucalion. There is a law and a form set down for
the marrying of these other people, but that would be useless for our
purposes. We will have neither