ferment, this man’s imperious audacity has cruelly troubled my peace of heart.  Four times his eyes pursued me in the processions; yesterday I still did not recognize my danger, but to-day—­I must tell you, for you are like a father to me, and who else in the world can I confide in?—­to-day I was able to avoid his gaze, and yet all through long endless hours of the festival I felt his eyes constantly seeking mine.  I should have been certain I was under no delusion, even if Publius Scipio—­but what business has his name on my lips?—­even if the Roman had not boasted to you of his attacks on a defenceless girl.  And to think that you, you of all others, should have become his ally!  But you would not, no indeed you would not, if you knew how I felt at the procession while I was looking down at the ground, and knew that his very look desecrated me like the rain that washed all the blossoms off the young vine-shoots last year.  It was just as if he were drawing a net round my heart—­but, oh! what a net!  It was as if the flax on a distaff had been set on fire, and the flames spun out into thin threads, and the meshes knotted of the fiery yarn.  I felt every thread and knot burning into my soul, and could not cast it off nor even defend myself.  Aye! you may look grieved and shake your head, but so it was, and the scars hurt me still with a pain I cannot utter.”

“But Klea,” interrupted Serapion, “you are quite beside yourself—­like one possessed.  Go to the temple and pray, or, if that is of no avail, go to Asclepios or Anubis and have the demon cast out.”

“I need none of your gods!” answered the girl in great agitation.  “Oh!  I wish you had left me to my fate, and that we had shared the lot of our parents, for what threatens us here is more frightful than having to sift gold-dust in the scorching sun, or to crush quartz in mortars.  I did not come to you to speak about the Roman, but to tell you what the high-priest had just disclosed to me since the procession ended.”

“Well?” asked Serapion eager and almost frightened, stretching out his neck to put his head near to the girl’s, and opening his eyes so wide that the loose skin below them almost disappeared.

“First he told me,” replied Klea, “how meagrely the revenues of the temple are supplied—­”

“That is quite true,” interrupted the anchorite, “for Antiochus carried off the best part of its treasure; and the crown, which always used to have money to spare for the sanctuaries of Egypt, now loads our estates with heavy tribute; but you, as it seems to me, were kept scantily enough, worse than meanly, for, as I know—­since it passed through my hands—­a sum was paid to the temple for your maintenance which would have sufficed to keep ten hungry sailors, not speak of two little pecking birds like you, and besides that you do hard service without any pay.  Indeed it would be a more profitable speculation to steal a beggar’s rags than to rob you!  Well, what did the high-priest want?”