rt.
Thyone was present at this explanation. After she had conquered the great
emotion which for a time sealed her lips, her first question, after the
physician's departure, was: "And Nemesis? She too, I think, has fled
before the new light?"
Hermon pressed her hand still more warmly, exclaiming with joyous
confidence: "No, Thyone! True, I now have little reason to fear the
avenging goddess who pursues the criminal, but all the more the other
Nemesis, who limits the excess of happiness. Will she not turn her swift
wheel, when I again, with clear eyes, see Daphne, and am permitted to
work in my studio once more with keen eyes and steady hand?"
Now the barriers which had hitherto restricted Hermon's social
intercourse also fell. Eumedes, the commander of the fleet, often visited
him, and while exchanging tales of their experiences they became friends.
When Hermon was alone with Thyone and her gray-haired husband, the
conversation frequently turned upon Daphne and her father.
Then the recovered artist learned to whom Archias owed his escape from
being sentenced to death and having his property confiscated. Papers,
undeniably genuine, had proved what large sums had been advanced by the
merchant during the period of the first Queen Arsinoe's conspiracy, and
envious foes had done their best to prejudice the King and his
sister-wife against Archias. Then the gray-haired hero fearlessly
interceded for his friend, and the monarch did not remain deaf to his
representations. King Ptolemy was writing the history of the conqueror of
the world, and needed the aged comrade of Alexander, the sole survivor
who had held a prominent position in the great Macedonian's campaigns. It
might be detrimental to his work, on which he set great value, if he
angered the old warrior, who was a living source of history. Yet the King
was still ill-disposed to the merchant, for while he destroyed Archias's
death sentence which had been laid before him for his signature, he said
to Philippus: "The money-bag whose life I give you was the friend of my
foe. Let him beware that my arm does not yet reach him from afar!"
Nay, his resentment went so far that he refused to receive Hermon, when
Eumedes begged permission to present the artist whose sight had been so
wonderfully restored.
"To me he is still the unjustly crowned conspirator," Philadelphus
replied. "Let him create the remarkable work which I formerly expected
from him, and perhaps I sha
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