he day?

The girl took off the kerchief that covered her head, and with a faint
groan pushed her tangled hair off her temples, and her bosom heaved as
she panted out in a weary voice: "Here I am! But O, father, what a night
I have spent!"

Heron could not for a minute or two find words to answer her.

What had happened to the girl? What could it be which made her seem so
strange and unlike her self? He gazed at her, speechless, and alarmed by
a hundred fearful suspicions. He felt as a mother might who has kissed
her child's fresh, healthy lips at night, and in the morning finds them
burning with fever.

Melissa had never been ill from the day of her birth; since she had
donned the dress of a full-grown maiden she had never altered; day after
day and at all hours she had been the same in her quiet, useful, patient
way, always thinking of her brothers, and caring for him rather than for
herself.

It had never entered into his head to suppose that she could alter; and
now, instead of the gentle, contented face with faintly rosy cheeks, he
saw a pallid countenance and quivering lips. What mysterious fire had
this night kindled in those calm eyes, which Alexander was fond of
comparing to those of a gazelle? They were sunk, and the dark shadows
that encircled them were a shock to his artistic eye. These were the eyes
of a girl who had raved like a maenad the night through. Had she not
slept in her quiet little room; had she been rushing with Alexander in
the wild Bacchic rout; or had something dreadful happened to his son?

Nothing could have been so great a relief to him as to rave and rage as
was his wont, and he felt strongly prompted to do so; but there was
something in her which moved him to pity or shyness, he knew not which,
and kept him quiet. He silently followed her with his eyes while she
folded her mantle and kerchief in her orderly way, and hastily gathered
together the stray, curly locks of her hair, smoothed them, and bound
them round her head.

Some one, however, must break the silence, and he gave a sigh of relief
when the girl came up to him and asked him, in a voice so husky as to
give him a fresh shock:

"Is it true that a Scythian, one of the nightwatch, has been here
already?"

Then he broke out, and it really did him good to give vent to his
repressed feelings in an angry speech:

"There again--the wisdom of slaves! The so-called Scythian brought a
message from his master.

"The captain o