given with real love--would still please me as of old; and yet
I should feel that there was something gone from me forever. Even if we
were restored to our own isle, with no enemy near or rival to interrupt
us, I could not but henceforth feel that destiny had not meant her for
me, so much would her stronger nature be ill assorted with my own. And
sometimes--'

'Well?'

'Sometimes--now that this thraldom of my spirit is passing off--there
comes back to me the memory of another face, a gentle, loving
face--which, if it were possible ever to see it again, I have too long
forgotten, but which, if I may not see it more, I should, for my own
sake, have forgotten long ago. But all this, honored mistress, can be of
no interest to you, and therefore it were foolish to mention it.'

'Nay, speak to me of it,' murmured AEnone; and, struggle as she would,
the telltale blood began to flow up into her face. 'Is there any woman
who does not care to listen to a love story?' she added, as though in
excuse for her curiosity.

'It is but a common love tale,' he said, 'and the more so that nothing
came of it. A few stolen interviews--a few promises exchanged--and then
a parting forever. That is all.'

'But where and when was this?'

'Six years ago, at Ostia. For, though a Greek, I have been in this land
before now. I was a sailor then, and in that port I met her. Met her and
loved her, and promised to return again. And for a while I meant to do
so; but on our passage back our ship was wrecked. I could not at once
find place upon another, and so took employment on the shore--none the
less, however, intending some day to come back and claim her. What shall
I say? It is the old story. The sea is wide, and I could interchange no
tidings with her. Ill success followed me, and I could not return to
Ostia. Then, little by little, as the months drifted past, and I
believed her lost to me, her image began to fade from my memory. And
then I saw Leta; and under the spell of that new charm, it seemed to me
as though the other one had lost all grasp upon my mind. Not altogether,
though, for even at the height of my later love, I have always borne
about me the last keepsake that she had given me.'

'Let me see it, what it is like,' said AEnone, faintly; and in obedience
to her command, and perhaps wondering a little that she should take such
interest in so simple a story, Cleotos drew from beneath his tunic a
thread with a coin dangling at the e