sharpened the sword. Perhaps he might escape with his life; but the Arab
would not disgorge what he once had seized, and if that young and
splendid Croesus should come out of prison alive, but a beggar, then--
then... And as for Paula! As for Heliodora! For once her little hand
had wrenched the thunderbolts from Zeus' eagle, and she would find one
for them!

The sense of her terrible power, to which more than one victim had
already fallen, intoxicated her. She would drive Orion--Orion who had
betrayed her--into utter ruin and misery; she would see him a beggar at
her feet!--And this it was that gave her courage to do her worst; this,
and this alone. What she would do then, she herself knew not; that lay
as yet in the womb of the Future. She might take a fancy to do something
kind, compassionate, and tender.

By the time she went into the house again her fears and depression had
vanished; revived energy possessed her soul, and the little eavesdropper
and tale-bearer had become in this short hour a purposeful and terrible
woman, ready for any crime.

"Poor little lamb!" thought Philippus, as he went into Rufinus' garden.
"That miserable man may have brought pangs enough to her little heart!"

His old friend's garden-plot was deserted. Under the sycamore, however,
he perceived the figures of a very tall young man and a pretty woman,
delicate, fair-haired, and rather pale. The big young fellow was holding
a skein of wool on his huge, outstretched hands; the girl was winding it
on to a ball. These were Rustem the Masdakite and Mandane, both now
recovered from their injuries; the girl, indeed, had been restored to the
new life of a calm and understanding mind. Philippus had watched over