ar morning Manetho sank into his deep-seated chair,
and was quite still. A great part of what had hitherto made his daily
life ended here. The activity of existence was over for him. Thought,
feeling, hope, could live hereafter only as phantoms of memory. But to
look back on evil done is not so pleasant as to plan it; the dead body
of a foe moves us in another way than his living hostile person.

When, therefore, Manetho should have hurled to its mark the
long-poised spear, he would have little to look forward to. That one
moment of triumph must repay, both for what had been and was to come.
To-day of all his days, then, must each sense and faculty be in
exquisite condition. Unseasonably enough, however, he found himself in
a perversely dull and callous state. Could Providence so cajole him as
to mar the only joyful hour of his life! Then better off than he were
savages, who could destroy their recusant idols. But nothing short of
spiritual suicide would have destroyed the idol of Manetho!

He was wearing to-day the same priestly robe which he had put on when,
for the first and last time, he performed a ministerial duty. In this
robe had he married Helen to Thor. Itself a precious relic of
antiquity, it had once dignified the shoulders of a contemporary of
Manetho's remotest ancestors. Old Hiero Glyphic had counted it amongst
his chiefest treasures; and on his sister's wedding-day had produced
it from its repository, insisting that the minister should wear it
instead of the orthodox sacerdotal costume. Since then it had lain
untouched till to-day.

Manetho brooded over the dim magnificence of its folds, sitting amidst
the cobwebbed rubbish, a narrow glint of sunshine creeping
slope-downwards from the crevice above his head. He smoothed the
fabric abstractedly with his hand, recalling the thoughts and scenes
of four-and-twenty years ago.

"I joined them in the holy bonds of matrimony,--read over them that
service, those sacred words heavy with solemn benediction. Rich,
smooth, softly modulated was my voice, missing not one just emphasis
or melodious intonation. Ah! had they seen my soul. But my eyes were
half closed like the crocodile's, yet never losing sight of the two I
was uniting in sight of God and man. The Devil too was there. He
turned the blessings my lips uttered into blighting curses, that fell
on the happy couple like pestilential rain!

"Laughable! Covered head to foot with curses, and felt them not! Al