on the shore he could not fail to make his way to Lochias. By the time
it was growing dark he was once more standing outside the little gate-
house, and there he learnt from Doris that the Roman and her son had not
yet returned.

What was he to do alone in the vast empty palace? Were not the very
slaves free to-day? Why should not he too for once enjoy life
independently and in his own way? Full of the pleasant sense of being
his own master and at liberty to walk in a road of his own choosing, he
went onwards, and when he presently passed by the stall of a flower-
seller, he began once more to think eagerly of Selene and the nosegay,
which must long since have reached her hands.

He had heard from Pollux in the morning that the steward's daughter was
being tended by Christians in a little house not far from the sea-shore;
indeed the sculptor himself had been quite excited as he told Antinous
that he himself had peeped into the lighted room and had seen her. 'A
glorious creature' he had called her, and had said that she had never
looked more beautiful than in a recumbent attitude on her bed.

Antinous recalled all this and determined to venture on an attempt to see
again the maiden whose image filled his heart and brain.

It was now dark and the same light which had allowed of the sculptor's
seeing Selene's features might this evening reveal them to him also.
Full of passion and excitement, he got into the first litter he met with.
The swarthy bearers were far too slow for his longing, and more than once
he flung to them as much money as they were wont to earn in a week, to
urge them to a brisker pace. At last he reached his destination; but
seeing that several men and women robed in white, were going into the