from the greatest danger, but the confession he must make to his fellow-
artists in the palaestra the following morning still sealed his lips.
Yet in this hour he felt that he was united to her, and ought not to
conceal what awaited him; so, obeying a strong impulse, he exclaimed:
"You know that I love you! Words can not express the strength of my
devotion, but for that very reason I must do what duty commands before I
ask the question, 'Will you join your fate to mine?'"

"I love you and have loved you always!" Daphne exclaimed tenderly. "What
more is needed?"

But Hermon, with drooping head, murmured: "To-morrow I shall no longer
be what I am now. Wait until I have done what duty enjoins; when that
is accomplished, you shall ask yourself what worth the blind artist still
possesses who bartered spurious fame for mockery and disgrace in order
not to become a hypocrite."

Then Daphne raised her face to his, asking, "So the Demeter is the work
of Myrtilus?"

"Certainly," he answered firmly. "It is the work of Myrtilus."

"Oh, my poor, deceived love!" cried Daphne, strongly agitated, in a tone
of the deepest sorrow. "What a terrible ordeal again awaits you! It
must indeed distress me--and yet Do not misunderstand me! It seems
nevertheless as if I ought to rejoice, for you and your art have not
spoken to me even a single moment from this much-lauded work."

"And therefore," he interrupted with passionate delight, "therefore alone
you withheld the enthusiastic praise with which the others intoxicated