Deadly pale, but erect and composed, he walked towards the house.  He owed to Dion and his father the greatest blessing in life, liberty, and the foundation of everything else he possessed.  But if his fears were verified, if he was bereft of friends and property, even as a lonely beggar he might continue to enjoy his freedom.  If, for the sake of those to whom he owed his best possession, he must surrender the rest, it was his duty to bear fate patiently.

It was still light.

Even when he had approached very near the house he heard no sound save the joyous barking of his wolf-hound, Argus, which leaped upon him.

He now laid his hand upon the lock of the door—­but it was flung open from the inside.

Dion had seen him coming and, enraptured by the new happiness with which this day had blessed him, he flung himself impetuously on the breast of his faithful friend, exclaiming:  “A boy, a splendid boy!  We will call him Pyrrhus.”

Bright tears of joy streamed down the freedman’s face and fell on his grey beard; and when his wife came towards him with her finger on her lips, he whispered in a tremulous voice:  “When I brought them here you were afraid that the city people would drag us into ruin, but nevertheless you received them as they deserved to be, and—­he’s going to name him Pyrrhus—­and now!—­What has a poor fellow like me done to have such great and beautiful blessings fall to my lot?”

“And I—­I?” sobbed his wife.  “And the child, the darling little creature!”

This day of sunny happiness was followed by others of quiet joy, of the purest pleasure, yet mingled with the deepest anxiety.  They also brought many an hour in which Helena found an opportunity to show her prudence, while old Chloris and the fisherman’s wife aided her by their experience.

Every one, down to the greybeard whose name the little one bore, declared that there had never been a lovelier young mother than Barine or a handsomer child than the infant Pyrrhus; but Dion could no longer endure to remain on the cliff.

A thousand things which he had hitherto deemed insignificant and allowed to pass unheeded now seemed important and imperatively in need of his personal attention.  He was a father, and any negligence might be harmful to his son.

With his bronzed complexion and long hair and beard he required little aid to disguise him from his friends.  In the garments shabby by long use, and with his delicate hands calloused by work in the dock-yard, any one would have taken him for a real fisherman.

Perhaps it was foolish, but the desire to show himself in the character of a father to Barine’s mother and grandparents and to Gorgias seemed worth risking a slight danger; so, without informing Barine, who was now able to walk about her room, he set out for the city after sunset on the last day of July.