"Thou knowest the reason full well, my child. If thou goest forth into the world, a great sorrow will come upon thee, and drive thee to death in the flower of thy youth. Such was the oracle of the gods concerning thee. Thy mother--poor young thing!--scarce lived to hold thee to her breast, and when she died she put thee in my arms. 'Take her away, nurse, far from the haunts of men, and never let her out into the cruel world. Go, live with her in some lonely tower by the sea, and make her a priestess to pitiless, foam-born Aphrodite. Night and day, as soon as she can lisp a baby prayer, let her burn incense before the altar of the goddess, and perchance she will have mercy on her, and save her from her fate. Full well I know that 'tis with her it rests to strike down my child or to save her, even as it was she, the goddess of Love, who laid her cruel hand on me, so that now I lie a-dying. Ah! save my child from the fate that has been mine.' I did as she bade me, and surely we have not been unhappy, thou and I, together, all these years?" And she stroked the girl's cheek tenderly, and sighed as she thought how, for many months past, it had grown paler week by week. "Ah, think me not ungrateful!" cried Hero. "Thou knowest that I love thee, and would never leave thee. But my heart is restless, and I long to set foot beyond this tower and see a great town and streets and the faces of my fellow-men." Then she rose from her knees, and led the old nurse to the window. "There!" she cried, pointing towards Sestos; "dost thou see where the white highway runs down into the city--how a crowd of pilgrims throng towards the gate? See, too, the steep pathway that winds upwards from the harbour--how the folk move ever one way, up, up, to the temple of Aphrodite on the hill! How often have I watched them year by year as they gather together for the great feast of Adonis! Yet I, who all my life long have been Aphrodite's priestess--I have never been inside her temple or joined with those who throng from far and wide to pay her worship at this glad season. Verily, the goddess hath good cause to be angered with me if I neglect her dues. Good nurse, let me go to-morrow and join in the procession of the maidens, and let me lay my tribute of flowers before her altar, that she may bless me and save me from my evil fate." But the old nurse was very troubled at her words. "My child, thou hast thine own shrine within the house where thou canst burn incense and offer up flowers to Aphrodite. She will answer thy prayers as well from here as from the crowded temple in the town." "Then why do men build her great pillared temples, and throng from far and near to keep her feast, if the fireside shrine and the simple prayer would please her as well? Nay, she loveth rich gifts and music and singing and the heads of many bowing as one man before her image. Ah, nurse, let me go--let me go."