She wandered out in the twilight and broke off branches of roses to deck the room; she put on the table the candied fruits and honey-cakes and wine of Cyprus that the worshipers of Venus offer to her priestess. The heavy footsteps of the old dame sounded as she mounted the stair and came back to her chamber and her wished-for bed. Then silence fell on the tower, and Hero sat with beating heart and waited. Leander had climbed to the top of the cliff, and there had lain down with his face to the sea, determined to keep his eyes from the tower till there was a reasonable chance of seeing the light. "When I see it glow," said Leander to himself, "then shall I too know where the haven lies, and steer safely home." He closed his eyes that he might see once more in fancy the sweet averted face under the fine veil. A noise below the cliff made him look up; the boat that had come from Abydos in the morning was starting back again. He watched it with a smile. It seemed to him a lifetime since he stepped from its deck upon the quay. Straight across to the other shore of this narrow arm of the sea was but a mile, but the slanting course to Abydos was full three miles' distance. Leander watched the boat as she left the quay with all his friends on board; then he could wait no longer; he looked up at Hero's tower; and there, in the top of the turret, flamed the signal light. Small pause made Leander when once he had seen that. Meanwhile, from her casement, Hero too had seen the boat putting out for Abydos, and believing Leander to be on board, gone from Sestos perhaps forever, the maiden sank down beside her open door, and covering her face with her hands she wept sore. "Alas," she murmured, "he is gone, gone, gone! The boat has sailed away." Leander, as he mounted the rocky stairs that led to the turret, overheard the maiden's cry, and, rushing forward, he flung himself on his knees beside her and softly kissed her fingers. Then, looking up with a start, the maiden would fain have seemed wroth at the sight of him, but it was too late. She had yielded at a touch, and Love was lord of all. But on the morrow Leander must return to his home at Abydos. So he took ship early in the morning, finding a vessel that was sailing thither, and came to his own home again. His father noticed at once that the youth was wearing a sprig of myrtle and a scarf embroidered with the doves of Venus, and he chid him sharply. "There are plenty of fair maids here, in thy own land," said he; "choose one of them and be happy with her, but woo not the priestess of Venus, or harm will come of it." Leander made no answer to his father's admonition, but in his heart he knew that no other maiden could ever after content him, and that he must see Hero again, though he died for it.