place quickly and with joyous courage. There is a proof of the existence
of the gods, which so exactly suits the hour when you will again see,
enjoy, admire what this dreary darkness now hides from you. It was a
philosopher who used it; I no longer know which one. How often I have
thought of it since this cruel misfortune befell you! And now--"

"Go on," Hermon interrupted with a smile of superiority. "You are
thinking of Aristotle's man who grew up in a dark cave. The conditions
which must precede the devout astonishment of the liberated youth when he
first emerged into the light and the verdant world would certainly exist
in me."

"Oh, not in that way," pleaded the wounded girl; and Thyone exclaimed:
"What is the story of the man you mention? We don't talk about Aristotle
and such subjects in Pelusium."

"Perhaps they are only too much discussed in Alexandria," said the blind
artist. "The Stagirite, as you have just heard, seeks to prove the
existence of the gods by the man of whom I spoke."

"No, he does prove it," protested Daphne. "Just listen, Mother Thyone.
A little boy grows up from earliest childhood into a youth in a dark
cave. Then suddenly its doors are opened to him. For the first time he
sees the sun, moon, and stars, flowers and trees, perhaps even a
beautiful human face. But at the moment when all these things rush upon
him like so many incomprehensible marvels, must he not ask himself who
created all this magnificence? And the answer which comes to him--"

"There is only one," cried the matron; "the omnipotent gods. Do you
shrug your shoulders at that, son of the pious Erigone? Why, of course!