g also to the gods."

"Get your response from yonder deity!" she impatiently interrupted,
pointing with a grand, queenly gesture, which at any other time would
have delighted his artist eye, to the statue of Nemesis in the cella.

Meanwhile Gula had also turned her face toward Hermon, and he now
addressed her, saying with a faint tone of reproach: "And did hatred
lead you also, Gula, to this sanctuary at midnight to implore the
goddess to destroy me in her wrath?"

The young mother rose and pointed to Ledscha, exclaiming, "She desires
it."

"And I?" he asked gently. "Have I really done you so much evil?"

She raised her hand to her brow as if bewildered; her glance fell on the
artist's troubled face, and lingered there for a short time. Then her
eyes wandered to Ledscha, and from her to the goddess, and finally back
again to the sculptor. Meanwhile Hermon saw how her young figure was
trembling, and, before he had time to address a soothing-word to her,
she sobbed aloud, crying out to Ledscha: "You are not a mother! My
child, he rescued it from the flames. I will not, and I can not--I will
no longer pray for his misfortune!"

She drew her veil over her pretty, tear-stained face as she spoke, and
darted lightly down the temple steps close beside him to seek shelter
in her parents' house, which had been unwillingly opened to the cast-off
wife, but now afforded her a home rich in affection.

Immeasurably bitter scorn was depicted in Ledscha's features as she
gazed after Gula. She did not appear to notice Hermon, and when at last
he appealed to her and briefly urged her to ask the old enchantress
on the Owl's Nest for a remedy for the wounded Gaul, she again leaned
against the post of the cella door, extended both arms with passionate
fervour toward the goddess, and remained standing there motionless, deaf
to his petition.

His blood seethed in his veins, and he was tempted to go nearer and
force her to hear him; but before he had ascended the first of the
flight of steps leading to the pronaos, he heard the footsteps of the
men who were bearing the wounded warrior after him.

They must not see him here with one of their countrywomen at this hour,
and manly pride forbade him to address her again as a supplicant.

So he went back to the road, mounted his horse, and rode on without
vouchsafing a word of farewell to the woman who was invoking destruction
upon his head. As he did so his eyes again rested on the stern