Then she went close to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said:  “The power of the goddess who punishes the misdeeds of the reckless is called irresistible and uncontrollable; but one thing softens even her, and checks her usually resistless wheel:  it is a mother’s prayer.  I heard this from my own mother, and experienced it myself, especially in my oldest son Eumedes, who from the wildest madcap became an ornament of his class, and to whom the King—­you doubtless know it—­intrusted the command of the fleet which is to open the Ethiopian land of elephants to the Egyptian power.  You, Hermon, are an orphan, but for you, too, the souls of your parents live on.  Only I do not know whether you still honour and pray to them.”

“I did until a few years ago,” replied Hermon.

“But later you neglected this sacred duty,” added Thyone.  “Yet how was that possible?  In our barren Pelusium I could not help thinking hundreds of times of the grove which Archias planted in your necropolis for the dead members of his family, and how often, while we were in Alexandria, it attracted me to think in its shade of your never-to-be-forgotten mother.  There I felt her soul near me; for there was her home, and in imagination I saw her walking and resting under the trees.  And you—­her beloved child—­you remained aloof from this hallowed spot!  Even at the festival of the dead you omitted prayers and sacrifices?”

The blind artist assented to this question by a silent bend of the head; but the matron indignantly exclaimed:  “And did not you know, unhappy man, that you were thus casting away the shield which protects mortals from the avenging gods?  And your glorious mother, who would have given her life for you?  Yet you loved her, I suppose?”

“Thyone!” Hermon cried, deeply wounded, holding out his right hand as if in defence.  “Well, well!” said the matron.  “I know that you revere her memory.  But that alone is not sufficient.  On memorial festivals, and especially on the birthdays, a mother’s soul needs a prayer and a gift from the son, a wreath, a fillet, fragrant ointment, a piece of honey, a cup of wine or milk—­all these things even the poor man spares from his penury—­yet a warm prayer, in pure remembrance and love, would suffice to rob the wrath of Nemesis, which the enraged barbarian girl let loose upon you, of its power.  Only your mother, Hermon, the soul of the noble woman who bore you, can restore to you what you have lost.  Appeal for aid to her, son of Erigone, and she will yet make everything right.”

Bending quickly over the artist as she spoke, she kissed his brow and moved steadily away, though he called her name with yearning entreaty.

A short time after, the steward Gras led Hermon to his cabin, and while undressing him reported that a messenger from Pelusium had announced that the commandant Philippus was coming to Tennis the next morning, before the market place filled, to take his wife with him to Alexandria, where he was going by the King’s command.