As soon as the blood of the bird had besprinkled the altar, and she had told the divinities that a goat was also to be killed, she fancied that they looked at her more kindly; and she was turning to the door, as light and gay as if she had happily done some difficult task, when the curtain screening off the library of archives was lifted, and a man came out calling her by name.  She turned round; but as soon as she saw that he was a Roman, and, as his white toga told her, of the upper class, she took fright.  She hastily exclaimed that she was in a hurry, and flew down the steps, through the garden, and into the road.  Once there, she reproached herself for foolish shyness of a stranger who was scarcely younger than her own father; but by the time she had gone a few steps she had forgotten the incident, and was rehearsing in her mind all she had to tell Heron.  She soon saw the tops of the palms and sycamores in their own garden, her faithful old dog Melas barked with delight, and the happiness which the meeting with the stranger had for a moment interrupted revived with unchecked glow.

She was weary, and where could she rest so well as at home?  She had escaped many perils, and where could she feel so safe as under her father’s roof?  Glad as she was at the prospect of her new and handsome home on the other side of the lake, and of all the delights promised her by Diodoros’s affection, her heart still clung fondly to the pretty, neat little dwelling whose low roof now gleamed in front of her.  In the garden, whose shell-strewn paths she now trod, she had played as a child; that window belonged to the room where her mother had died.  And then, coming home was in itself a joy, when she had so much to tell that was pleasant.

The dog leaped along by her side with vehement affection, jumping round her and on her, and she heard the starling’s cry, first “Olympias!” and then “My strength!”

A happy smile parted her rosy lips as she glanced at the work-room; but the two white teeth which always gleamed when she was gay were presently hidden, for her father, it would seem, was out.  He was certainly not at work, for the wide window was unscreened, and it was now nearly noon.  He was almost always within at this hour, and it would spoil half her gladness not to find him there.

But what was this?  What could this mean?  The dog had announced her approach, and old Dido’s gray head peeped out of the house-door, to vanish again at once.  How strangely she had looked at her—­exactly as she had looked that day when the physician had told the faithful creature that her mistress’s last hour was at hand!

Melissa’s contentment was gone.  Before she even crossed the threshold, where the friendly word “Rejoice” greeted her in brown mosaic, she called the old woman by name.  No answer.