“And that is what I will never consent to,” cried Demetrius in a voice like low thunder.  “I cannot and will not.  These things have been held precious and sacred to men for thousands of years and I cannot, will not, blow them off the face of the earth, as you blow a feather off your cloak.  You may go and do it yourself; you may be able to achieve it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mary drawing herself up with a glance of indignant protest.

“Yes—­if any one can do it you can!” repeated Demetrius imperturbably.  “I went to-day to seek the images of our forefathers—­the venerable images that were clear to our infancy, the portraits of our fathers’ fathers and mothers, the founders of the honor of our race.  And where are they?  They have gone with the protectors of our home, the pride and ornament of this house—­of the street, of the city—­the Hermes and Pallas Athene that you—­you flung into the lime-kiln.  Old Phabis told me with tears in his eyes.  Alas poor house that is robbed of its past, of its glory, and of its patron deities!”

“I have placed it under a better safeguard,” replied Maria in a tremulous voice, and she looked it Marcus with an appeal for sympathy.  “Now, for the last time, I ask you:  Will you accede to my demands or will you not?”

“I will not,” said Demetrius resolutely.

“Then I must find a new agent to manage the estates.”

“You will soon find one; but your land—­which is our land too—­will become a desert.  Poor land!  If you destroy its shrines and sanctuaries you will destroy its soul; for they are the soul of the land.  The first inhabitants gathered round the sanctuary, and on that sanctuary and the gods that dwell there the peasant founds his hopes of increase on what he sows and plants, and of prosperity for his wife and children and cattle and all that he has.  In destroying his shrines you ruin his hopes, and with them all the joy of life.  I know the peasant; he believes that his labors must be vain if you deprive him of the gods that make it thrive.  He sows in hope, in the swelling of the grain he sees the hand of the gods who claim his joyful thanksgiving after the harvest is gathered in.  You are depriving him of all that encourages and uplifts and rejoices his soul when you ruin his shrines and altars!”

“But I give him other and better ones,” replied Mary.

“Take care then that they are such as he can appreciate,” said Demetrius gravely.  “Persuade him to love, to believe, to hope in the creed you force upon him; but do not rob him of what he trusts in before he is prepared to accept the substitute you offer him.—­Now, let me go; we are neither of us in the temper to make the best arrangements for the future.  One thing, at any rate, is certain:  I have nothing more to do with the estate.”

CHAPTER VI.