do you believe him, simple fool? I know him,
I know him! Why, for a scrap of bread and a drop of wine from the hand of
his priest he would see you and all of us plunged into misery! But see,
here are the messengers."

Porphyrius gave his instructions to the young men who now entered the
hall, hurried them off, clasped Gorgo in a tender embrace and then bent
over his mother to kiss her--a thing he had not done for many a day. Old
Damia laid aside her stick, and taking her son's face in both her
withered hands, muttered a few words which were half a fond appeal and
half a magical formula, and then the women were alone. For a long while
both were silent. The old woman sat sunk in her arm-chair while Gorgo
stood with her back against the pedestal of a bust of Plato, gazing
meditatively at the ground. At last it was Damia who spoke, asking to be
carried into the women's rooms.

Gorgo, however, stopped her with a gesture, went close to her and said:
"No, wait a minute, mother; first you must hear what I have to say."

"What you have to say?" asked her grandmother, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yes. I have never deceived you; but one thing I have hitherto concealed
from you because I was never till this morning sure of it myself--now I
am. Now I know that I love him."

"The Christian?" said the old woman, pushing aside a shade that screened
her eyes.

"Yes, Constantine; I will not hear you abuse him." Damia laughed sharply,
and said in a tone of supreme scorn:

"You will not? Then you had better stop your ears, my dear, for as long
as my tongue can wag. . . ."

"Hush, grandmother, say no more," said the girl resolutely. "Do not
provoke me with more than I can bear. Eros has pierced me later than he
does most girls and has done it but once, but how deeply you can never
know. If you speak ill of him you only aggravate the wound and you would
not be so cruel! Do not--I entreat you; drop the subject or else. . ."

"Or else?"

"Or else I must die, mother--and you know you love me."

Her tone was soft but firm; her words referred to the future, but that
future was as clear to Gorgo's view as if it were past. Damia gave a
hasty, sidelong glance at her grandchild, and a cold chill ran through
her; the--girl stood and spoke with an air of inspiration--she was full
of the divinity as Damia thought, and the old woman herself felt as
though she were in a temple and in the immediate presence of the
Immortals.

Gorgo waited for