is homage; but, say, canst thou hear me calmly?"

"Ay, though the words were lightning and could blast me!"

"_I love another_!" said Ione blushingly, but in a firm voice.

"By the gods," shouted Arbaces, rising to his fullest height, "dare not
tell me that! Dare not mock me! It is impossible! Whom hast thou seen?
Whom known? Oh, Ione, it is thy woman's invention, thy woman's art that
speaks; thou wouldst gain time. I have surprised--I have terrified
thee."

"Alas!" began Ione; and then, appalled before his sudden and unlooked
for violence, she burst into tears.

Arbaces came nearer to her, his breath glowed fiercely on her cheek. He
wound his arms round her; she sprang from his embrace. In the struggle a
tablet fell from her bosom. Arbaces perceived, and seized it; it was a
letter she had received that morning from Glaucus.

Ione sank upon the couch, half-dead with terror.

Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing. He read it to the end,
and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said, in a voice of
deceitful calmness, "Is the writer of this the man thou lovest?"

Ione sobbed, but answered not.

"Speak!" he demanded.

"It is--it is!"

"Then hear me," said Arbaces, sinking his voice into a whisper. "_Thou
shalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms_."

At this instant a curtain was rudely torn aside, and Glaucus and
Apsecides appeared. There was a severe struggle, which might have had a
more sinister ending had not the marble head of a goddess, shaken from
its column, fallen upon Arbaces as he was about to stab the Greek, and
struck the Egyptian senseless to the ground. As it was, Ione was saved,
and she and her lover were then and for ever reconciled to one another.

_III.--The Love Philtre_

Clodius had not spoken without warrant when he had said that Julia, the
daughter of the rich merchant Diomed, thought herself in love with
Glaucus. But since Glaucus was denied to her, her thoughts were
concentrated on revenge. In this mood she sought out Arbaces, presenting
herself as one loving unrequitedly, and seeking in sorrow the aid of
wisdom.

"It is a love charm," admitted Julia, "that I would seek from thy skill.
I know not if I love him who loves me not, but I know that I would see
myself triumph over a rival. I would see him who has rejected me my
suitor. I would see her whom he has preferred in her turn despised."

Very quickly Arbaces discerned Julia's secret, and when he heard tha