ched the white eyelids,
folded close like lily-buds at night, even as one watches for the
morning. At last they opened; but the fire of fever was burning in the
eyes, and the lips were moving in a wild delirium.

Hour after hour that sweet childish voice rang through the halls and
chambers of the splendid, helpless house, now rising in shrill calls
of distress and senseless laughter, now sinking in weariness and dull
moaning. The stars shone and faded; the sun rose and set; the roses
bloomed and fell in the garden; the birds sang and slept among the
jasmine-bowers. But in the heart of Hermas there was no song, no bloom,
no light--only speechless anguish, and a certain fearful looking-for of
desolation.

He was like a man in a nightmare. He saw the shapeless terror that was
moving toward him, but he was impotent to stay or to escape it. He had
done all that he could. There was nothing left but to wait.

He paced to and fro, now hurrying to the boy's bed as if he could not
bear to be away from it, now turning back as if he could not endure to
be near it. The people of the house, even Athenais, feared to speak to
him, there was something so vacant and desperate in his face.

At nightfall on the second of those eternal days he shut himself in the
library. The unfilled lamp had gone out, leaving a trail of smoke in
the air. The sprigs of mignonette and rosemary, with which the room was
sprinkled every day, were unrenewed, and scented the gloom with close
odours of decay. A costly manuscript of Theocritus was tumbled in
disorder on the floor. Hermas sank into a chair like a man in whom the
very spring of being is broken. Through the darkness some one drew near.
He did not even lift his head. A hand touched him; a soft arm was laid
over his shoulders. It was Athenais, kneeling beside him and speaking
very low:

"Hermas--it is almost over--the child! His voice grows weaker hour by
hour. He moans and calls for some one to help him; then he laughs. It
breaks my heart. He has just fallen asleep. The moon is rising now.
Unless a change comes he cannot last till sunrise. Is there nothing we
can do? Is there no power that can save him? Is there no one to pity us
and spare us? Let us call, let us beg for compassion and help; let us
pray for his life!"

Yes; this was what he wanted--this was the only thing that could bring
relief: to pray; to pour out his sorrow somewhere; to find a greater
strength than his own and cling to it