in hand for Queen Arsinoe's plans--but the daughter of Archias, and this
circumstance also aided in producing his change of view.

Hermon's blindness, it was to be hoped, would be cured.

Duty, and perhaps also interest, commanded him to show him frankly how
highly he estimated his art and his last work.

After the arrival of Thyone and Daphne, Hermon had consented to accompany
them on board the Proserpina, their spacious galley. True, he had
yielded reluctantly to this arrangement of his parents' old friend, and
neither she nor Daphne had hitherto succeeded in soothing the fierce
resentment against fate which filled his soul after the loss of his sight
and his dearest friend. As yet every attempt to induce him to bear his
terrible misfortune with even a certain degree of composure had failed.

The Tennis leech, trained by the Egyptian priests at Sais in the art of
healing, who was attached as a pastophorus to the Temple of Isis, in the
city of weavers, had covered the artist's scorched face with bandages,
and earnestly adjured him never in his absence to raise them, and to keep
every ray of light from his blinded eyes. But the agitation which had
mastered Hermon's whole being was so great that, in spite of the woman's
protestations, he lifted the covering again and again to see whether he
could not perceive once more at least a glimmer of the sunlight whose
warming power he felt. The thought of living in darkness until the end
of his life seemed unendurable, especially as now all the horrors which,
hitherto, had only visited him in times of trial during the night
assailed him with never-ceasing cruelty.

The image of the spider often forced itself upon him, and he fancied that