yesterday."

She laid the first bandage on Hermon's eyes with her own weak fingers,
at the same time muttering an incantation; but it did not seem to satisfy
her. Great excitement had taken possession of her, and as the silver
light of the full moon shone into her room she waved her hands before the
artist's eyes and fixed her gaze upon the threshold illumined by the
moonbeams, ejaculating sentences incomprehensible to the blind man. Bias
supported her, for she had risen to her full height, and he felt how she
tottered and trembled.

Yet her strength held out to whisper to Hermon: "Nearer, still nearer!
By the light of the august one whose rays greet us, let it be said: You
will see again. Await your recovery patiently in a quiet place in the
pure air, not in the city. Refrain from everything with which the Greeks
intoxicate themselves. Shun wine, and whatever heats the blood.
Recovery is coming; I see it drawing near. You will see again as surely
as I now curse the woman who abandoned the husband to whom she vowed
fidelity. She rejoiced over your blindness, and she will gnash her teeth
with rage and grief when she hears that it was Tabus who brought light
into the darkness that surrounds you."

With these words she pushed off the freedman's supporting arms and sank
back upon the couch.

Again Hermon tried to thank her; but she would not permit it, and said in
an almost inaudible tone: "I really did not give the salve to do you
good--the last act of all--"

Finally she murmured a few words of direction for its use, and added that