For a whole week Pollux had devoted himself to this task during all the hours of daylight with unflagging zeal and diligence.  Before night fell he was accustomed to leave his work and walk up and down in front of Paulina’s house, but for the present he refrained from knocking at the door and asking after the girl he loved.  He had heard from his mother how anxiously she was guarded from him and his; still Paulina’s severity would certainly not have hindered the artist from making the attempt to possess himself of his dearest treasure.  What held him back from even approaching Arsinoe, was the vow he had made to himself never to tempt her to quit her new and sheltered home till he had acquired a firm certainty of being once for all an artist, a true artist, who might hope to do something great, and who might dare to link the fate of the woman he loved, with his own.

When, on the eighth morning of his labors, he was taking a few minutes rest, his brother’s master came past the rapidly advancing work, and after contemplating it for some time exclaimed: 

“Splendid, splendid!  Our time has produced nothing to compare with it!”

An hour later Pollux was standing at the door of Paulina’s town-house, and let the knocker fall heavily on the door.  The steward opened to him and asked him what he wanted.  He asked to speak with dame Paulina, but she was not at home.  Then he asked after Arsinoe, the daughter of Keraunus, who had found a home with the rich widow.  The servant shook his head.

“My mistress is having her searched for,” he said.  “She disappeared yesterday evening.  The ungrateful creature!  She has tried to run away several times before now.”

The artist laughed, slapped the steward on the back, and said: 

“I will soon find her!” and he sprang away down the street, and back to his parents.

Arsinoe had received much kindness in Paulina’s house, but she had also gone through many bad hours.  For months she had been obliged to believe that her lover was dead.  Pontius had told her that Pollux had entirely vanished and her benefactress persisted in al ways speaking of him as of one dead.  The poor child had shed many tears for him, and when the longing to talk of him with some one who had known him had taken possession of her she had entreated Paulina to allow her to go to see his mother or to let Doris visit her.  But the widow had desired her to give up all thought of the idol-maker and his belongings, speaking with contempt of the gate-keeper’s worthy wife.  Just at that time Selene also left the city, and now Arsinoe’s longing for her old friends grew to a passionate craving to see them again.

One day she yielded to the promptings of her heart and slipped out into the street to seek Doris; but the door-keeper, who had been charged by Paulina never to allow her to go outside the door without his mistress’s express permission, noticed her and brought her back to her protectress—­not this time only, but, on several subsequent occasions when she attempted to escape.