“On this he declared to me in words so tender and touching as I never before heard from his lips, that if I were deceiving him his peace of mind would be forever destroyed-nay, that he feared for his reason; and when I had repeatedly assured him, by the memory of our departed mother, that I had never dreamed of playing a trick upon him, he shook his head, grasped his brow, and turned to leave the room without another word.”

“And you let him go?” cried Melissa, in anxious alarm.

“Certainly not,” replied the painter.  “On the contrary, I stood in his way, and asked him whether he had known Korinna, and what all this might mean.  But he would make no reply, and tried to pass me and get away.  It must have been a strange scene, for we two big men struggled as if we were at a wrestling-match.  I got him down with one hand behind his knees, and so he had to remain; and when I had promised to let him go, he confessed that he had seen Korinna at the house of her uncle, the high-priest, without knowing who she was or even speaking a word to her.  And he, who usually flees from every creature wearing a woman’s robe, had never forgotten that maiden and her noble beauty; and, though he did not say so, it was obvious, from every word, that he was madly in love.  Her eyes had followed him wherever he went, and this he deemed a great misfortune, for it had disturbed his power of thought.  A month since he went across Lake Mareotis to Polybius to visit Andreas, and while, on his return, he was standing on the shore, he saw her again, with an old man in white robes.  But the last time he saw her was on the morning of the very day when all this happened; and if he is to be believed, he not only saw her but touched her hand.  That, again, was by the lake; she was just stepping out of the ferry-boat.  The obolus she had ready to pay the oarsman dropped on the ground, and Philip picked it up and returned it to her.  Then his fingers touched hers.  He could feel it still, he declared, and yet she had then ceased to walk among the living.

“Then it was my turn to doubt his word; but he maintained that his story was true in every detail; he would hear nothing said about some one resembling her, or anything of the kind, and spoke of daimons showing him false visions, to cheat him and hinder him from working out his investigations of the real nature of things to a successful issue.  But this is in direct antagonism to his views of daimons; and when at last he rushed out of the house, he looked like one possessed of evil spirits.

“I hurried after him, but he disappeared down a dark alley.  Then I had enough to do to finish my copy, and yesterday I carried it home to Seleukus.