She once more kissed Agatha, and went to the door, but her friend held her back, and whispered “In my father’s grounds there is a famous hiding place, where no one would ever find him.  It has often been a refuge for weeks and months for persecuted members of our faith.  When he is seriously threatened, bring him to us.  We will gladly provide for his safety, and all else.  Only think, if they should catch him!  It would be for my sake, and I should never be happy again.  Promise me that you will bring him.”

“Yes, certainly,” cried Melissa, as she hurried out into the vestibule, where Andreas and the leech were waiting for her.

They had done well to enlist the girl’s services, for, since nursing her mother, she knew, as few did, how to handle the sick.  It was not till they had fairly set out that Melissa observed that Dame Katharine was of the party; she had no doubt become reconciled to the idea of the sick man’s removal to the Serapeum, for she had the same look of kindly calm which had so much attracted the girl at their first meeting.

The streets along which they passed in the pale morning light were now deserted, and a film of mist, behind which glowed the golden light of the newly risen sun, shrouded the horizon.  The fresh air of morning was delicious, and at this early hour there was no one to avoid—­only the peasants and their wives carrying the produce of their gardens and fields to market on asses, or wagons drawn by oxen.  The black slaves of the town were sweeping the roadway.  Here there were parties of men, women, and children on their way to work in factories, which were at rest but for a few hours in the bustling town.  The bakers and other provision-dealers were opening their shops; the cobblers and metalworkers were already busy or lighting fires in their open stalls; and Andreas nodded to a file of slave-girls who had come across from the farm and gardens of Polybius, and who now walked up the street with large milk-jars and baskets of vegetables poised on their heads and supported with one gracefully raised arm.

They presently crossed the Aspendia Canal, where the fog hung over the water like white smoke, hiding the figure of the tutelary goddess of the town on the parapet of the bridge from those who crossed by the roadway.  The leaves of the mimosa-trees by the quay—­nay, the very stones of the houses and the statues, wet with the morning dew—­looked revived and newly washed; and a light breeze brought up from the Serapeum broken tones of the chant, sung there every morning by a choir of priests, to hail the triumph of light over darkness.