nterrupted companionship of the married pair
revealed to each unexpected treasures in the other, which, perhaps, might
have remained forever concealed in city life. Here each was everything to
the other, and this undisturbed mutual life soon inspired that blissful
consciousness of inseparable union which usually appears only after
years, as the fairest fruit of a marriage founded on love.

Doubtless there were hours when Barine longed to see her mother and
others who were dear to her, but the letters which arrived from time to
time prevented this yearning from becoming a source of actual pain.

Prudence required them to restrict their intercourse with the city. But,
whenever Pyrrhus went to market, letters reached the island delivered at
the fish auction in the harbour by Anukis, Charmian's Nubian maid, to the
old freedman, who had become her close friend.

So the time came when Dion could say without self-deception that Barine
was content in this solitude, and that his love and companionship
supplied the place of the exciting, changeful life of the capital. Though
letters came from her mother, sister, or Charmian, her grandfather,
Gorgias, or Archibius, not one transformed the wish to leave her desolate
hiding-place into actual homesickness, but each brought fresh subjects
for conversation, and among them many which, by arousing the interest of
both, united them more firmly.

The second month of their flight a letter arrived from Archibius, in
which he informed them that they might soon form plans for their return,
for Alexas, the Syrian, had proved a malicious traitor. He had not
performed the commission entrusted to him of winning Herod to Antony's
cause, but treacherously deserted his patron and remained with the King
of the Jews. When, with unprecedented shamelessness, he sought Octavianus
to sell the secrets of his Egyptian benefactor, he was arrested and
executed in his own home, Laodicea.

Now, their friend continued, Cleopatra's eyes as well as her husband's
were opened to the true character of Barine's most virulent accuser. The
influence of Philostratus, too, was of course destroyed by his brother's
infamous deed. Yet they must wait a little longer; for Caesarion had
joined the Ephebi, and Antyllus had been invested with the toga virilis.
They could now undertake many things independently, and Caesarion often
made remarks which showed that he would not cease to lay plots for
Barine.

Dion feared nothing