d escort her to the Serapeum. When he had left
them she gave the keys of her grandmother's chests and cupboards
into Marianne's keeping; then she went into the adjoining room, where
Constantine had been waiting while she decked the bed of death, and bid
him a solemn, but apparently calm, farewell. He put out his arm to clasp
her to his heart, but this she would not permit; and when he besought
her to go home with them she answered sadly, "No, my dearest... I must
not; I have other duties to fulfil."

"Yes," he replied emphatically, "and I, too--I have mine. But you have
given yourself to me. You are my very own; you belong to me only,
and not to yourself; and I desire, I command you to yield to my first
request. Go with my mother, or stay here, if you will, with the dead.
Wherever your father may be, it is not, cannot be, the right place for
you--my betrothed bride. I can guess where he is. Oh! Gorgo, be warned.

"The fate of the old gods is sealed. We are the stronger and to-morrow,
yes to-morrow--by your own head, by all I hold dear and sacred!--Serapis
will fall!"

"I know it," she said firmly. "And you are charged to lay hands on the
god?"

"I am, and I shall do it."

She nodded approbation and then said submissively and sweetly: "It is
your duty, and you cannot do otherwise. And come what may we are one,
Constantine, forever one. Nothing can part us. Whatever the future may
bring, we belong to each other, to stand or fall together. I with you,
you with me, till the end of time." She gave him her hand and looked
lovingly into his eyes; then she threw herself into his mother's arms
and kissed her fondly.

"Come, come with me, my child," said Marianne; but Gorgo freed herself,
exclaiming: "Go, go; if you love me leave me; go and let me be alone."

She went back into the thalamos where the dead lay at peace, and before
the others could follow her she had opened a door hidden behind some
tapestry near the bed, and fled into the garden.

CHAPTER XXI.

The night was hot and gloomy. Heavy clouds gathered in the north, and
wreaths of mist, like a hot vapor-bath, swayed over the crisply-foaming
wavelets that curled the lustreless waters of the Mareotis Lake. The
moon peeped, pale and shrouded, out of a russet halo, and ghostly
twilight reigned in the streets, still heated by the baked walls of the
houses.

To the west, over the desert, a dull sulphurous yellow streaked the
black clouds, and from time to ti