if needful, Diodoros, could all be concealed there. But for
Melissa, neither he nor Alexander thought it sufficiently secure.

As she took leave of him the young girl once more charged the newly freed
man to greet her father from her a thousand times, to beseech his
forgiveness of her for the bitter grief she must cause him, and to assure
him of her affection.

"Tell him," she added, as the tears streamed down her cheeks, "that I
feel as if I were going to my death. But, come what may, I am always his
dutiful child, always ready to sacrifice anything--excepting only the man
to whom, with my father's consent, I pledged my heart. Tell him that for
love of him I might have been ready even to give my hand to the
blood-stained Caesar, but that Fate--and perhaps the manes of her we
loved, and who is dead--have ordered it otherwise."

She then went into the room where her mother had closed her eyes. After a
short prayer by that bed, which still stood there, she hastened to
Philip's room. He lay sleeping heavily; she bent over him and kissed the
too high brow, which looked as though even in sleep the brain within were
still busy over some difficult and painful question.

Her way led her once more through her father's work-room, and she had
already crossed it when she hastily turned back to look once more--for
the last time-at the little table where she had sat for so many years,
busy with her needle, in modest contentment by the artist's side,
dreaming with waking eyes, and considering what she, with her small
resources and great love, could do that would be of use to those she
loved, or relieve them if they were in trouble. Then, as though she knew
that she was bidding a last farewell to all the pleasant companionship of
her youth, she looked at the birds, long since gone to roost in their
cages. In spite of his recent curule honors Heron had not forgotten them,
and, before quitting the house to display himself to the populace in the
'toga pretexa', he had as usual carefully covered them up. And now, as
Melissa lifted the cloth from the starling's cage, and the bird muttered
more gently than usual, and perhaps in its sleep, the cry, "Olympias!" a
shudder ran through her; and, as she stepped out into the road by
Alexander's side, she said, dejectedly:

"Everything is coming to an end! Well, and so it may; for what has come
over us all in these few days? Before Caesar came, what were you--what
was Philip? In my own heart wha