As she walked along, a wan-faced woman who was quieting a sickly child held out her scrawny hand for alms, saying, “For the love of the Mother of God, give me food for my dying child!” Hera stopped, looked at the wan face of the mother, then at the miserable, sickly child, whose lips were nearly as white as the curds of milk in its half-open mouth. She pressed a piece of money into the mother’s hand. At that moment the babe convulsively moved, gave a feeble cry, rolled its eyes, and then grew rigid. The child died before Hera’s eyes. The poor mother shrieked with anguish. Hera trembled. The unsaid prayers at Apollo’s shrine and the sight of the dead child were the most ominous signs that had ever come into her experience. She silently went her way, deeply impressed by these warnings. She wished for some one to talk to. “Would that Alcmaeon or Psyche were only with me!” she said to herself. If Hera’s heart beat for her children, her love for Alcmaeon was the power that controlled the pulsations. Her soul belonged to him. But her life was completely wrapped up in her family. Rarely did she see or talk with any one but them. Her life had been one bright summer in the sunshine of their love. No dark cloud had shadowed her life as yet, and no cloud was visible on the horizon of her happiness. To counteract the evil effects of the warnings she had received, she softly sung a hymn as she walked along. So absorbed was she in contemplation that she did not observe two soldiers before her, carrying a litter. She did not even see them when they turned down her street. But when they stopped before her house, she hastened forward in alarm. While she quickly opened the door and helped them place the litter on the table, she anxiously asked them what had happened. They told her that an accident had befallen Gannon. Thinking that he was only injured, she tremblingly drew back the cover. She beheld the dead face of her dear son. She uttered a piercing shriek of horror and despair. Her cry aroused the neighbors, who collected around the door and curiously looked inside. The distracted mother quickly closed the door. Wringing her hands, she asked, in a voice broken by sobs, how he had died. In a dazed manner she gathered from the replies of the soldiers that at midnight, while on the roof of the camp, he had lost his balance and had fallen to the ground.