mber and
proffer my favour, only to find it repulsed, disdained. I am tired of
it--tired!"

"You can't be more tired of it than I am!" he said.

"I ask myself," she went on, "why, having, through your means, ascended
once more to the earth, which I left so fair, I seek not those things
which once delighted me. This city of yours--all that I have seen of
it--revolts me; but it is vast, vaster than those built by the mortals
of old. Surely somewhere there must be brightness in it and beauty, and
the colour and harmony by which men knew once to delight the gods
themselves. It cannot be that the gods of old are all forgotten; surely,
somewhere there yet lingers a little band of faithful ones, who have not
turned from Aphrodite."

"I can't say, I'm sure," said Leander; "I could inquire for you."

"I myself will seek for them," she said proudly. "I will go forth this
very night."

Leander choked. "To-night!" he cried. "You _can't_ go to-night."

"You forget yourself," she returned haughtily.

"If I let you go," he said hesitatingly, "will you promise faithfully to
be back in half an hour?"

"Do you not yet understand that you have to do with a goddess--with
Aphrodite herself?" she said. "Who are you, to presume to fetter me by
your restrictions? Truly, the indulgence I have shown has turned your
weak brain."

He put his back against the door. He was afraid of the goddess, but he
was still more afraid of the burglars' vengeance if they arrived to find
the prize missing.

"I'm sorry to disoblige a lady," he said; "but you don't go out of this
house to-night."

In another minute he was lying in the fender amongst the
fireirons--alone! How it was done he was too stunned to remember; but
the goddess was gone. If she did not return by midnight, what would
become of him? If he had only been civil to her, she might have stayed;
but now she had abandoned him to certain destruction!

A kind of fatalistic stupor seized him. He would not run away--he would
have to come home some time--nor would he call in the police, for he had
a very vivid recollection of Mr. Braddle's threat in such a contingency.

He went, instead, into the dark saloon, and sat down in a chair to wait.
He wondered how he could explain the statue's absence. If he told the
burglars it had gone for a stroll, they would tear him limb from limb.
"I was so confoundedly artful about Potter," he thought bitterly, "that
they'll never believe now I haven't warn