he fear. "I would as quickly deprive my own son
of my support as I would you just at this time, my poor boy; but whether
my conscience will permit me to let Daphne remain near you only grant
me, I repeat it, until sunrise to-morrow for reflection. My old heart
will then find the right way."

"Yet whatever you may decide concerning us," pleaded the blind man,
"tell Daphne that, on the eve of losing her, I first felt in its full
power how warmly I love her. Even without Nemesis, the joy of making
her mine would have been denied me. Fate will never permit me to possess
her; yet never again to hear her gentle voice, never more to feel her
dear presence, would be blinding me a second time."

"It need not be imposed upon you long," said the matron soothingly.

Then she went close to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said:
"The power of the goddess who punishes the misdeeds of the reckless is
called irresistible and uncontrollable; but one thing softens even her,
and checks her usually resistless wheel: it is a mother's prayer. I
heard this from my own mother, and experienced it myself, especially in
my oldest son Eumedes, who from the wildest madcap became an ornament
of his class, and to whom the King--you doubtless know it--intrusted the
command of the fleet which is to open the Ethiopian land of elephants
to the Egyptian power. You, Hermon, are an orphan, but for you, too,
the souls of your parents live on. Only I do not know whether you still
honour and pray to them."

"I did until a few years ago," replied Hermon.

"But later you neglected this sacred duty," added Thyone. "Yet how was
that possible? In our barren Pelusium I could not help thinking hundreds
of times of the grove which Archias planted in your necropolis for the
dead members of his family, and how often, while we were in Alexandria,
it attracted me to think in its shade of your never-to-be-forgotten
mother. There I felt her soul near me; for there was her home, and in
imagination I saw her walking and resting under the trees. And you--her
beloved child--you remained aloof from this hallowed spot! Even at the
festival of the dead you omitted prayers and sacrifices?"

The blind artist assented to this question by a silent bend of the head;
but the matron indignantly exclaimed: "And did not you know, unhappy
man, that you were thus casting away the shield which protects mortals
from the avenging gods? And your glorious mother, who would have given