Again Barine felt as if a thorn had pierced her; but though the resentment which she had previously experienced once more surged hotly within her heart, she forced herself to maintain seemly external composure, and struggled for some word in answer; but she found none suitable, and remained silent.

She had told the truth.  From early youth she had followed the impulses of her own nature without heeding the opinion of mortals, as the teachings of the Stoics directed, and she had been allowed to do so because this nature was pure, truthful, alive to the beautiful, and, moreover, free from those unbridled, volcanic impulses to which the Queen alluded.  The cheerful patience of her soul had found ample satisfaction in the cultivation of her art, and in social intercourse with men who permitted her to share their own intellectual life.  Today she had learned that the first great passion of her heart had met with a response.  Now she was bound to her lover, and knew herself to be pure and guiltless, far better entitled to demand respect from sterner judges of morality than the woman who condemned her, or the spiteful Iras, who had not ceased to offer her love to Dion.

The sorrowful feeling of being misunderstood and unjustly condemned, mingled with fear of the terrible fate to which she might be sentenced by the omnipotent sovereign, whose clear intellect was clouded by jealousy and the resentment of a mother’s wounded heart, paralyzed her tongue.  Besides, she was confused by the angry emotion which the sight of Iras awakened.  Twice, thrice she strove to utter a few words of explanation, defence, but her voice refused to obey her will.

When Charmian at last approached to encourage her, it was too late; the indignant Queen had turned away, exclaiming to Iras:  “let her be taken back to Lochias.  Her guilt is proved; but it does not become the injured person, the accuser, to award the punishment.  This must be left to the judges before whom we will bring her.”

Then Barine once more recovered the power of speech.  How dared Cleopatra assert that she was convicted of a crime, without hearing her defence?

As surely as she felt her own innocence she must succeed in proving it, and with this consciousness she cried out to the Queen in a tone of touching entreaty:  “O your Majesty, do not leave me without hearing me!  As truly as I believe in your justice, I can ask you to listen to me once more.  Do not give me up to the woman who hates me because the man whom she—­”

Here Cleopatra interrupted her.  Royal dignity forbade her to hear one woman’s jealous accusation of another, but, with the subtle discernment with which women penetrate one another’s moods, she heard in Barine’s piteous appeal a sincere conviction that she was too severely condemned.  Doubtless she also had reason to believe in Iras’s hate, and Cleopatra knew how mercilessly she pursued those who had incurred her displeasure.  She had rejected