e Scythian guards sent by the exegetus
Demetrius, one of Barine's friends, were keeping back the throng of
curious spectators.

Their commander knew Gorgias, and he was soon standing in the impluvium
of the scholar's house, an oblong, rootless space, with a fountain in the
centre, whose spray moistened the circular bed of flowers around it. The
old slave had just lighted some three-branched lamps which burned on tall
stands. The officers sent by the Regent to inform Didymus that his garden
would be converted into a public square had just arrived.

When Gorgias entered, these magistrates, their clerks, and the witnesses
accompanying them--a group of twenty men, at whose head was Apollonius, a
distinguished officer of the royal treasury--were in the house. The slave
who admitted the architect informed him of it.

In the atrium a young girl, doubtless a member of the household, stopped
him. He was not mistaken in supposing that she was Helena, Didymus's
younger granddaughter, of whom Barine had spoken. True, she resembled her
sister neither in face nor figure, for while the young matron's hair was
fair and waving, the young girl's thick black tresses were wound around
her head in a smooth braid. Very unlike Barine's voice, too, were the
deep, earnest tones trembling with emotion, in which she confronted him
with the brief question, concealing a faint reproach, "Another demand?"

After first ascertaining that he was really speaking to Helena, his
friend's sister, he hastily told her his name, adding that, on the
contrary, he had come to protect her grandfather from a serious
misfortune.

When his glance first rested upon her in the dimly lighted room, the
impression she made upon him was by no means favourable. The pure brow,
which seemed to him too high for a woman's face, wore an indignant frown;
and though her mouth was beautiful in form, its outlines were often
marred by a passionate tremor that lent the exquisitely chiselled
features a harsh, nay, bitter expression. But she had scarcely heard the
motive of his presence ere, pressing her hand upon her bosom with a sigh
of relief, she eagerly exclaimed:

"Oh, do what you can to avert this terrible deed! No one knows how the
old man loves this house. And my grandmother! They will die if it is
taken from them."

Her large eyes rested upon him with a warm, imploring light; and the
stern, almost repellent voice thrilled with love for her relatives. He
must lend his a