The image of the spider often forced itself upon him, and he fancied that the busy insect was spreading its quickly made web over his blinded eyes, which he was not to touch, yet over which he passed his hand to free them from the repulsive veil.

The myth related that because Athene’s blow had struck the ambitious weaver Arachne, she had resolved, before the goddess transformed her into a spider, to put an end to her disgrace.

How infinitely harder was the one dealt to him!  How much better reason he had to use the privilege in which man possesses an advantage over the immortals, of putting himself to death with his own hand when he deems the fitting time has come!  What should he, the artist, to whom his eyes brought whatever made life valuable, do longer in this hideous black night, brightened by no sunbeam?

He was often overwhelmed, too, by the remembrance of the terrible end of the friend in whom he saw the only person who might have given him consolation in this distress, and the painful thought of his poverty.

He was supported solely by what his art brought and his wealthy uncle allowed him.  The Demeter which Archias had ordered had been partially paid for in advance, and he had intended to use the gold—­a considerable sum—­to pay debts in Alexandria.  But it was consumed with the rest of his property—­tools, clothing, mementoes of his dead parents, and a few books which contained his favourite poems and the writings of his master, Straton.

These precious rolls had aided him to maintain the proud conviction of owing everything which he attained or possessed solely to himself.  It had again become perfectly clear to him that the destiny of earth-born mortals was not directed by the gods whom men had invented after their own likeness, in order to find causes for the effects which they perceived, but by deaf and blind chance.  Else how could even worse misfortune, according to the opinion of most people, have befallen the pure, guiltless Myrtilus, who so deeply revered the Olympians and understood how to honour them so magnificently by his art, than himself, the despiser of the gods?

But was the death for which he longed a misfortune?

Was the Nemesis who had so swiftly and fully granted the fervent prayer of an ill-used girl also only an image conjured up by the power of human imagination?

It was scarcely possible!

Yet if there was one goddess, did not that admit the probability of the existence of all the others?

He shuddered at the idea; for if the immortals thought, felt, acted, how terribly his already cruel fate would still develop!  He had denied and insulted almost all the Olympians, and not even stirred a finger to the praise and honour of a single one.

What marvel if they should choose him for the target of their resentment and revenge?