m
from the repulsive veil.

The myth related that because Athene's blow had struck the ambitious
weaver Arachne, she had resolved, before the goddess transformed her into
a spider, to put an end to her disgrace.

How infinitely harder was the one dealt to him! How much better reason he
had to use the privilege in which man possesses an advantage over the
immortals, of putting himself to death with his own hand when he deems
the fitting time has come! What should he, the artist, to whom his eyes
brought whatever made life valuable, do longer in this hideous black
night, brightened by no sunbeam?

He was often overwhelmed, too, by the remembrance of the terrible end of
the friend in whom he saw the only person who might have given him
consolation in this distress, and the painful thought of his poverty.

He was supported solely by what his art brought and his wealthy uncle
allowed him. The Demeter which Archias had ordered had been partially
paid for in advance, and he had intended to use the gold--a considerable
sum--to pay debts in Alexandria. But it was consumed with the rest of his
property--tools, clothing, mementoes of his dead parents, and a few books
which contained his favourite poems and the writings of his master,
Straton.

These precious rolls had aided him to maintain the proud conviction of
owing everything which he attained or possessed solely to himself. It had
again become perfectly clear to him that the destiny of earth-born
mortals was not directed by the gods whom men had invented after their
own likeness, in order to find causes for the effects which they
perceived, but by deaf and blind chance. Else how could even worse
misfortune, according to the opinion of most people, have befallen the
pure, guiltless Myrtilus, who so deeply revered the Olympians and
understood how to honour them so magnificently by his art, than himself,
the despiser of the gods?

But was the death for which he longed a misfortune?

Was the Nemesis who had so swiftly and fully granted the fervent prayer
of an ill-used girl also only an image conjured up by the power of human
imagination?

It was scarcely possible!

Yet if there was one goddess, did not that admit the probability of the
existence of all the others?

He shuddered at the idea; for if the immortals thought, felt, acted, how
terribly his already cruel fate would still develop! He had denied and
insulted almost all the Olympians, and not even stirred a fi