very dear to her, and how
many girls who had gone astray had she rescued from evil in the factory
alone! She begged for a short time for reflection, and this was granted
to her. By the fifteenth of March she was to decide, but by the fifth she
had already made up her mind, for while Hannah was in the papyrus-factory
Antinous had succeeded in getting into Paulina's garden shortly before
sunset and in stealing close up to Hannah's house. Mary again observed
him as he approached and signed to him to go, in her usual pleasant way;
but the Bithynian was more excited than usual; he seized her hand and
clasped her with urgent warmth as he implored her to be merciful. She
endeavored at once to free herself, but he would not let her go, but
cried in coaxing tones:

"I must see her and speak to her to-day, dear, good Mary, only this
once!" And before she could prevent it he had kissed her forehead and had
flown into the house to Selene. The little hunchback did not know what
had happened to her; confused and almost paralyzed by conflicting
feelings she stood shame-faced, gazing at the ground. She felt that
something quite extraordinary had happened to her, but this wonderful
something radiated a dazzling splendor, and since this had risen for her,
for poor Mary, a feeling of pride quite new to her mingled with the shame
and indignation that filled her soul. She needed a few minutes to collect
herself and to recover a sense of her duty, and those few minutes were
made good use of by Antinous.

He flew with long steps into the room in which, on that
never-to-be-forgotten night, he had laid Selene on the couch, and even at
the threshold he called her by her name. She started and laid aside the
book out of which she was reading to her blind brother. He called a
second time, beseechingly. Selene recognized him and asked calmly:

"Do you want me, or dame Hannah?"

"You, you!" he cried passionately. "Oh Selene, I pulled you out of the
water, and since that night I have never ceased to think of you and I
must die for love of you. Have your thoughts never, never met mine on the
way to you? Are you still and always as cold, as passive as you were then
when you belonged half to life and half to death? For months have I
prowled round this house as the shade of a dead man haunts the spot where
he had left all that was dear to him on earth, and I have never been able
to tell you what I feel for you?" As he spoke the lad fell on the ground