seems more appropriate. You who did not envy me in my
happiness will help me to bear misfortune. Epicurus, who believes that
the gods merely watch the destiny of men inactively from their blissful
heights, is right. Were it otherwise, how could the love and loyalty
which cleave to the hapless, defeated woman, be repaid with anguish of
heart and tears? Yet continue to love her."

Archibius, pale and silent, let the tablet fall. It was long ere he
gasped hoarsely: "I foresaw it; yet now that it is here--" His voice
failed, and violent, tearless sobs shook his powerful frame.

Sinking on a couch he buried his face amid the cushions.

Iras gazed at the strong man and shook her head. She, too, loved the
Queen; the news had brought tears to her eyes also; but even while she
wept, a host of plans coping with this disaster had darted through
her restless brain. A few minutes after the arrival of the message of
misfortune she had consulted with the members of Cleopatra's council,
and adopted measures for sustaining the people's belief in the naval
victory.

What was she, the delicate, by no means courageous girl, compared
to this man of iron strength who, she was well aware, had braved the
greatest perils in the service of the Queen? Yet there he lay with his
face hidden in the pillows as if utterly overwhelmed.

Did a woman's soul rebound more quickly after being crushed beneath the
burdens of the heaviest suffering, or was hers of a special character,
and her slender body the casket of a hero's nature?

She had reason to believe so when she recalled how the Regent and the
Keeper of the Seal had received the terrible news. They had rushed
frantically up and down the vast hall as if desperate; but Mardion the
eunuch had little manhood, and Zeno was a characterless old author who
had won the Queen's esteem, and the high office which he occupied solely
by the vivid power of imagination, that enabled him constantly to devise
new exhibitions, amusements, and entertainments, and present them with
magical splendour.

But Archibius, the brave, circumspect counsellor and helper?

His shoulders again quivered as if they had received a blow, and
Iras suddenly remembered what she had long known, but never fully
realized--that yonder grey-haired man loved Cleopatra, loved her as she
herself loved Dion; and she wondered whether she would have been strong
enough to maintain her composure if she had learned that a cruel fate
threaten