d soon be again enwrapped in
the sweet slumber of childhood, which had long shunned his couch.

It was years since he had felt so full of peace and hope, and he told
himself, with grateful joy, that every childlike emotion had not yet
died within him, that the stern conflicts and struggles of the last
years had not yet steeled every gentle emotion.

CHAPTER IV.

The sun of the following day had long passed its meridian when Hermon
at last woke. The steward Gras, who had grown gray in the service of
Archias, was standing beside the couch.

There was nothing in the round, beardless face of this well-fed yet
active man that could have attracted the artist, yet the quiet tones of
his deep voice recalled to memory the clear, steadfast gaze of his gray
eyes, from which so often, in former days, inviolable fidelity, sound
sense, caution, and prudence had looked forth at him.

What the blind man heard from Gras surprised him--nay, at first seemed
impossible. To sleep until the afternoon was something unprecedented for
his wakeful temperament; but what was he to say to the tidings that
the commandant of Pelusium had arrived in his state galley early in
the morning and taken his wife, Daphne, and Chrysilla away with him to
Alexandria?

Yet it sounded credible enough when the Bithynian further informed him
that the ladies had left messages of remembrance for him, and said that
Archias's ship, upon which he was, would be at his disposal for any
length of time he might desire. Gras was commissioned to attend him. The
Lady Thyone especially desired him to heed her counsel.

While the steward was communicating this startling news as calmly as
if everything was a matter of course, the events of the preceding night
came back to Hermon's memory with perfect distinctness, and again the
fear assailed him that the rescued Demeter was the work of Myrtilus, and
not his own.

So the first question he addressed to Gras concerned the Tennis
goldsmith, and it was a keen disappointment to Hermon when he learned
that the earliest time he could expect to see him would be the following
day. The skilful artisan had been engaged for weeks upon the gold
ornaments on the new doors of the holy of holies in the Temple of Amon
at Tanis. Urgent business had called him home from the neighbouring
city just before the night of the attack; but yesterday evening he had
returned to Tanis, where his wife said he would have only two days' work
to do.