n the land while I, when I heard
that Irene had gone away with you, and that murder threatened your life,
believed implicitly that on the contrary you had lured the child away
to become your sweetheart, and then--then I hated you, and then--I must
confess it\--in my horrible distraction I wished you dead!"

"And you think that wish can offend me or hurt me?" said Publius. "No,
my child; it only proves to me that you love me as I could wish to be
loved. Such rage under such circumstances is but the dark shadow cast by
love, and is as inseparable from love as from any tangible body. Where
it is absent there is no such thing as real love present--only an airy
vision, a phantom, a mockery. Such an one as Klea does not love nor hate
by halves; but there are mysterious workings in your soul as in that of
every other woman. How did the wish that you could see me dead turn into
the fearful resolve to let yourself be killed in my stead?"

"I saw the murderers," answered Klea, "and I was overwhelmed with horror
of them and of their schemes, and of all that had to do with them; I
would not destroy Irene's happiness, and I loved you even more deeply
than I hated you; and then--but let us not speak of it."

"Nay-tell me all."

"Then there was a moment--"

"Well, Klea?"

"Then--in these last hours, while we have been sitting hand in hand by
the body of poor Serapion, and hardly speaking, I have felt it all over
again--then the midnight hymn of the priests fell upon my heart, and as
I lifted up my soul in prayer at their pious chant I felt as if all my
inmost heart had been frozen and hardened, and was reviving again to new
life and tenderness and warmth. I could not help thinking of all that
is good and right, and I made up my mind to sacrifice myself for you and
for Irene's happiness far more quickly and easily than I could give it
up afterwards. My father was one of the followers of Zeno--"

"And you," interrupted Publius, "thought you were acting in accordance
with the doctrine of the Stoa. I also am familiar with it, but I do not
know the man who is so virtuous and wise that he can live and act, as
that teaching prescribes, in the heat of the struggle of life, or who
is the living representative in flesh and blood of the whole code of
ethics, not sinning against one of its laws and embodying it in himself.
Did you ever hear of the peace of mind, the lofty indifference and
equanimity of the Stoic sages? You look as if the q