Did Hadassah hear the joyful exclamation? If she did not, it mattered but little, for she had already grasped with ecstasy all that its meaning could convey; for the last sentence uttered by Lysimachus ere he fell had reached her ear. Her son--her beloved--was "falling away to the Hebrews," or rather was returning to the faith which he once had abjured; he was given back--he was saved from perdition--he was rescuing his child from death and his mother from despair! Hadassah's mind had received all this, conveyed as it were in a lightning flash of joy. She needed to know no more;--her son was folded in her arms! Pollux and Hadassah sank together on the paved way. The sight of a few drops of blood on the stones first startled Zarah into a knowledge that Lysimachus had inflicted an injury on her father. "Oh, he is wounded!" she exclaimed, throwing herself on her knees beside him. "Dead!" ejaculated Anna, who was vainly attempting to raise the head of Pollux. "No--no--not dead! Oh, Lycidas!--Lycidas!" exclaimed Zarah in horror, intuitively appealing to the Athenian to relieve her from the terrible fear which Anna had raised. "It is too true," said Lycidas sadly; for he could not look upon the countenance of Pollux and doubt that life was extinct. "We must gently separate the son from the arms of his mother." But they who had been so long separated in life could not be separated in death; man had now no power to divide them. Often had Hadassah thought that her heart would break with grief;--it had burst with joy! Her day of sorrow was over; her long Sabbath rest had begun. The happy smile which had lately played on her lips in sleep, now rested upon them in that last peaceful slumber from which she should never again awake to weep. She had been given her heart's desire, and so had departed in peace. Blessed death; most joyful departure! CHAPTER XXVIII. UNITED IN THE GRAVE. Lycidas dared not at first break to Zarah the mournful truth that one blow had bereft her of both her protectors, that she was now indeed an orphan, and alone in the world. Zarah saw that her father was dead, but believed that Hadassah had swooned. The subdued wail of Anne over the corpse of her mistress, first revealed to the bereaved girl the full extent of her loss. Its greatness, its suddenness, almost stunned her; it was a paralyzing grief.