Hermon spent seven long days and nights full of anxious expectation in a darkened room.  Bias and a careful old female slave of the Lady Thyone watched him faithfully.  Philippus, his wife, and his famous son Eumedes were allowed to pay him only brief visits; but Erasistratus watched the success of the operation every morning.  True, it had been by no means dangerous, and certainly would not have required his frequent visits, but it pleased the investigator, reared in the school of Stoics, to watch how this warm-blooded young artist voluntarily submitted to live in accord with reason and Nature—­the guiding stars of his own existence.

But Hermon opened his soul to his learned friend, and what Erasistratus thus learned strengthened the conviction of this great alleviator of physical pain that suffering and knowledge of self were the best physicians for the human soul.  The scientist, who saw in the arts the noblest ornament of mortal life, anticipated with eager interest Hermon’s future creative work.

On the seventh day the leech removed the bandage from his patient’s eyes, and the cry of rapture with which Hermon clasped him in his arms richly rewarded him for his trouble and solicitude.

The restored man beheld in sharp, clear, undimmed outlines everything at which the physician desired him to look.

Now Erasistratus could write to his friend Herophilus in Alexandria that the operation was successful.

The sculptor was ordered to avoid the dazzling sunlight a fortnight longer, then he might once more use his eyes without restriction, and appeal to the Muse to help in creating works of art.

Thyone was present at this explanation.  After she had conquered the great emotion which for a time sealed her lips, her first question, after the physician’s departure, was:  “And Nemesis?  She too, I think, has fled before the new light?”

Hermon pressed her hand still more warmly, exclaiming with joyous confidence:  “No, Thyone!  True, I now have little reason to fear the avenging goddess who pursues the criminal, but all the more the other Nemesis, who limits the excess of happiness.  Will she not turn her swift wheel, when I again, with clear eyes, see Daphne, and am permitted to work in my studio once more with keen eyes and steady hand?”

Now the barriers which had hitherto restricted Hermon’s social intercourse also fell.  Eumedes, the commander of the fleet, often visited him, and while exchanging tales of their experiences they became friends.

When Hermon was alone with Thyone and her gray-haired husband, the conversation frequently turned upon Daphne and her father.