, in a house at Pompeii, whither she
had come from Naples during his absence, Glaucus came face to face once
more with the beautiful lone, the object of his dreams. And no longer
was he able to say, "I do not love."

_II.--Arbaces, the Egyptian_

Amongst the wealthy dwellers in Pompeii was one who lived apart, and was
at once an object of suspicion and fear. The riches of this man, who was
known as Arbaces, the Egyptian, enabled him to gratify to the utmost the
passions which governed him--the passion of sensual indulgence and the
blind force which impelled him to seek relief from physical satiety in
the pursuit of that occult knowledge which he regarded as the heritage
of his race.

In Naples, Arbaces had known the parents of Ione and her brother
Apaecides, and it was under his guardianship that they had come to
Pompeii. The confidence which, before their death, their parents had
reposed in the Egyptian was in turn fully given to him by lone and her
brother. For Apaecides the Egyptian felt nothing but contempt; the youth
was to him but an instrument that might be used by him in bending lone
to his will. But the mind of Ione, no less than the beauty of her form,
appealed to Arbaces. With her by his side, his willing slave, he saw no
limit to the heights his ambition might soar to. He sought primarily to
impress her with his store of unfamiliar knowledge. She, in turn,
admired him for his learning, and felt grateful to him for his
guardianship. Apaecides, docile and mild, with a soul peculiarly alive
to religious fervour, Arbaces placed amongst the priests of Isis, and
under the special care of a creature of his own, named Calenus. It
pleased his purpose best, where Ione was concerned, to leave her awhile
surrounded by the vain youth of Pompeii, so that he might gain by
comparison.

It fell not within Arbaces' plans to show himself too often to his ward.
Consequently it was some time before he became aware of the warmth of
the friendship that was growing up between Ione and the handsome Greek.
He knew not of their evening excursions on the placid sea, of their
nightly meetings at Ione's dwelling, till these had become regular
happenings in their daily lives. But one day he surprised them together,
and his eyes were suddenly opened. No sooner had the Greek departed than
the Egyptian sought to poison Ione's mind against him by exaggerating
his love of pleasure and by unscrupulously describing him as making
light o