rove a deserter from the cause to-day
or to-morrow it would give others--Olympius--a right to point at me with
scorn."

"What is it then that you have undertaken?" asked Constantine with grave
anxiety.

"To crown and close my past life. Before I can say: I am yours, wholly
yours . . ."

"Are you not mine now, to-day, at once?" he urged.

"To day-no," she replied firmly. "The great cause still has a claim upon
me; the cause which I must renounce for your sake. But the woman who
gives only one person reason to despise her signs the death-warrant of
her own dignity. I will carry out what I have undertaken. . . . Do not ask me
what it is; it would grieve you to know.--The day after tomorrow, when
the feast of Isis is over. . . ."

"Gorgo, Gorgo!" shouted Damia's shrill voice, interrupting the young girl
in her speech, and half a dozen slave-women came rushing out in search of
her.

They rose, and as they went towards the house Constantine said very
earnestly:

"I will not insist; but trust my experience: When we have to give
something up sooner or later, if the wrench is a painful one, the sooner
and the more definitely it is done the better. Nothing is gained by
postponement and the pain is only prolonged. Hesitation and delay, Gorgo,
are a barrier built up by your own hand between us and our happiness. You
always had abundance of determination; be brave then, now, and cut short
at once a state of things that cannot last."

"Well, well," she said hurriedly. "But you must not, you will not require
me to do anything that is beyond my strength, or that would involve
breaking my word. To-morrow is not, and cannot be yours; it must be a day
of leave-taking and parting. After that I am yours, I cannot live without
you. I want you and nothing else. Your happiness shall be mine; only, do
not make it too hard to me to part from all that has been dear to me from
my infancy. Shut your eyes to tomorrow's proceedings, and then--oh! if
only we were sure of the right path, if only we could tread it together!
We know each other so perfectly, and I know, I feel, that it will perhaps
be a comfort to our hearts to be patient with each other over matters
which our judgment fails to comprehend or even to approve. I might be so
unutterably happy; but my heart trembles within me, and I am not, I dare
not be quite glad yet."

CHAPTER XII.

The young soldier was heartily welcomed by his friends of the merchant's
family; but old