Deep and bitter grief overwhelmed her completely, with the sense of abandoned loneliness, the humiliating feeling of helplessness against a brutal power that marches on, scorning humanity, as a warrior treads down the grass and flowers in his path.  She fell on her knees by the corpse, sobbing passionately, and crying like an indignant child when a stronger companion has robbed it of some precious possession.  She wept with rage at her own impotence; and her tears flowed faster and faster as she more fully realized how lonely she was, and what a blow this must be to her father.  In this hour no pleasant reminiscences of past family happiness came to infuse a drop of sweetness into the bitterness of her grief.  Only one reflection brought her any comfort, and that was the thought that the grave which had yawned already for her grandmother would soon, very soon, open for herself and all living souls.  On the table, close at hand, lay the evidence of their impending doom, and a longing for that end gradually took complete possession of her, excluding every other feeling.  Thinking of this she rose from her knees and ceased to weep.

When, presently, her waiting-woman should return, she was resolved to leave the house at once; she could not bear to stay; her feelings and duty alike indicated the place where she might find the last hour’s happiness that she expected or desired of life.  Her father must learn from herself, and not from a stranger, of the loss that had befallen them, and she knew that he was in the Serapeum—­on the very spot where she might hope next morning to meet Constantine.  It would be her lover’s duty to open the gate to destruction, and she would be there to pass through it at his side.

She waited a long, long time, but at last there was a noise on the stairs.  That was her nurse’s step, but she was not alone.  Had she brought the leech and the exorciser?  The door opened and the old steward came in, carrying a three-branched lamp; then followed the slave-woman, and then—­her heart stood still then came Constantine and his mother.

Gorgo, pale and speechless, received her unexpected visitors.  The nurse had failed to find the physician, whose aid would, at any rate, have come too late; and as the housekeeper had taken herself off with others of the Christian slaves, the faithful soul had said to herself that “her child” would want some womanly help and comfort in her trouble, and had gone to the house of their neighbor Clemens, to entreat his wife to come with her to see the dead, and visit her forlorn young mistress.  Constantine, who had come home a short time previously, had said nothing, but had accompanied the two women.