had been delayed by that pert little
singing-girl, it would be all her own fault. She felt as though there
were something in her which forced her to seem much worse than she
really was, and wished to be. Agne, Marcus, the young soldier--nay,
even Gorgo, were loftier and nobler than she or her people, and she
was conscious for the first time that the dangers from which Marcus had
longed to protect her were not the offspring of his fancy. She could not
have found a name for them, but she understood that she was whirled and
tossed through life from one thing to another, like a leaf before the
wind, bereft of every stay or holdfast, defenceless even against the
foolish vagaries of her own nature. Everyone, thought the girl to
herself, distrusted and suspected her, and, solely because she was one
of a family of singers, dared to insult and dishonor her. A strange
spite against Fate, against her uncle and aunt, against herself even,
surged up in her, and with it a vague longing for another and a better
life.

Thus meditating she looked down into the water, not noticing what was
going on around her, till the slave-woman, addressing her by name,
pointed to a carriage drawn up at the side of the road that divided the
grove of the Temple of Isis from the ship-yard, and which the Egyptian
believed that she recognized as belonging to Marcus. Dada started up and
ran off to the cabin to fetch her shoes, but everything in the shape of
a sandal had vanished, and Herse had been wise when she had looked
at those of the Egyptian, for Dada did the same and would not have
hesitated to borrow them if they had been a little less dirty and
clumsy.

Herse, no doubt, had played her this trick, and it was easy to guess
why! It was only to divert her suspicions that the false woman had
been so affectionate at parting. It was cheating, treachery-cruel and
shameful! She, who had always submitted like a lamb--but this was too
much--this she could not bear--this!... The slave-woman now followed
her to desire her to come up on deck; a new visitor had appeared on the
scene, an old acquaintance and fellow-voyager: Demetrius, Marcus' elder
brother.

At any other time she would have made him gladly welcome, as a companion
and comfort in her solitude; but he had chosen an evil hour for his
visit and his proposals, as the girl's red cheeks and tearful eyes at
once told him.

He had come to fetch her, cost him what it might, and to carry her away
to his