Hermon only half listened, and then ordered the Bithynian to leave him.

After he had reclined on the couch a short time, he softly called the names of the steward, Thyone, and Daphne.  As he received no answer, and thus learned that he was alone, he rose, drew himself up to his full height, gazed heavenward with his bandaged eyes, stretched both hands toward the ceiling of the low cabin, and obeyed his friend’s bidding.

Thoroughly convinced that he was doing right, and ashamed of having so long neglected what the duty of a son commanded, he implored his mother’s soul for forgiveness.

While doing so he again found that the figure which he recalled to his memory appeared before him with marvellous distinctness.  Never had she been so near him since, when a boy of seven, she clasped him for the last time to her heart.  She tenderly held out her arms to him, and he rushed into her embrace, shouting exultantly while she hugged and kissed him.  Every pet name which he had once been so glad to hear, and during recent years had forgotten, again fell from her lips.  As had often happened in days long past, he again saw his mother crown him for a festival.  Pleased with the little new garment which she herself had woven for him and embroidered with a tiny tree with red apples, beneath which stood a bright-plumaged duckling, she led him by the hand in the necropolis to the empty tomb dedicated to his father.

It was a building the height of a man, constructed of red Cyprian marble, on which, cast in bronze, shield, sword, and lance, as well as a beautiful helmet, lay beside a sleeping lion.  It was dedicated to the memory of the brave hipparch whom he had been permitted to call his father, and who had been burned beside the battlefield on which he had found a hero’s death.

Hermon now again beheld himself, with his mother, garlanding, anointing, and twining with fresh fillets the mausoleum erected by his uncle Archias to his brave brother.  The species of every flower, the colour of the fillets-nay, even the designs embroidered on his little holiday robe—­ again returned to his mind, and, while these pleasant memories hovered around him, he appealed to his mother in prayer.

She stood before him, young and beautiful, listening without reproach or censure as he besought her forgiveness and confided to her his sins, and how severely he was punished by Nemesis.

During this confession he felt as though he was kneeling before the beloved dead, hiding his face in her lap, while she bent over him and stroked his thick, black hair.  True, he did not hear her speak; but when he looked up again he could see, by the expression of her faithful blue eyes, that his manly appearance surprised her, and that she rejoiced in his return to her arms.

She listened compassionately to his laments, and when he paused pressed his head to her bosom and gazed into his face with such joyous confidence that his heart swelled, and he told himself that she could not look at him thus unless she saw happiness in store for him.