She had not stood thus with uplifted arms for many minutes when the moon, once more appearing, recalled her to herself and to actuality.  She now perceived close to her, at hardly a hundred paces from where she stood, the line of sphinxes by the side of which lay the tombs of Apis near which she was to await Publius.  Her heart began to beat faster again, and her dread of her own weakness revived.  In a few minutes she must meet the Roman, and, involuntarily putting up her hand to smooth her hair, she was reminded that she still wore Glaucus’ hat on her head and his cloak wrapped round her shoulders.  Lifting up her heart again in a brief prayer for a calm and collected mind, she slowly arranged her dress and its folds, and as she did so the key of the tomb-cave, which she still had about her, fell under her hand.  An idea flashed through her brain—­she caught at it, and with hurried breath followed it out, till she thought she had now hit upon the right way to preserve from death the man who was so rich and powerful, who had given her nothing but taken everything from her, and to whom, nevertheless, she—­the poor water-bearer whom he had thought to trifle with—­could now bestow the most precious of the gifts of the immortals, namely, life.

Serapion had said, and she was willing to believe, that Publius was not base, and he certainly was not one of those who could prove ungrateful to a preserver.  She longed to earn the right to demand something of him, and that could be nothing else but that he should give up her sister and bring Irene back to her.

When could it be that he had come to an understanding with the inexperienced and easily wooed maiden?  How ready she must have been to clasp the hand held out to her by this man!  Nothing surprised her in Irene, the child of the present; she could comprehend too that Irene’s charm might quickly win the heart even of a grave and serious man.

And yet—­in all the processions it was never Irene that he had gazed at, but always herself, and how came it to pass that he had given a prompt and ready assent to the false invitation to go out to meet her in the desert at midnight?  Perhaps she was still nearer to his heart than Irene, and if gratitude drew him to her with fresh force then—­aye then—­ he might perhaps woo her, and forget his pride and her lowly position, and ask her to be his wife.

She thought this out fully, but before she had reached the half circle enclosed by the Philosophers’ busts the question occurred to her mind.  And Irene?

Had she gone with him and quitted her without bidding her farewell because the young heart was possessed with a passionate love for Publius —­who was indeed the most lovable of men?  And he?  Would he indeed, out of gratitude for what she hoped to do for him, make up his mind, if she demanded it, to make her Irene his wife—­the poor but more than lovely daughter of a noble house?