Why had he not warned his child when he was making her a priestess? He had put her on the perilous seat of the tripod without one thought of her. He had left her aidless and lonely. He was to blame, to blame! Near the Great Temple Dryas met him again, saying that his search had been fruitless—asking where now to go. Nikander caught his son’s hand convulsively. “Go nowhere,” he pleaded. “Stay with me.” But even as he clung to his boy he thought how impossible it would be for Theria to do what Dryas had done. No spies could have dragged her away on such an errand. And oh, dear Paian, she would not have companioned with them at all nor left her father lonely through these terrible days. She would have entered with him into every struggle for Delphi’s honor if her father had only allowed her. How wistful she was when she met him returning from Council. What a sly little puss in her questioning, finding out his problems which he did not mean to tell! Nikander smiled, but in his smiling found himself blinded with tears. Dryas was sure that it was anxiety for Lycophron which unmanned his father thus. Long after nightfall the two came home again. The slaves brought supper, and all unwilling they sat down to eat. Then footsteps were heard in the doorway—Eëtíon and the slave with Theria white on her litter. Nikander ran to her, lifting her in his arms as though she were a child, calling her endearing names, weeping with relief. He laid her on a couch in the aula while they brought the torches. But one look at Theria’s face and wide-open eyes sobered him. “Theria, Theria,” he called to her terrible silence. “Oh, Nikander, don’t you see that she is dying?” cried Eëtíon, brokenhearted. Nikander rose solemnly to his feet. “She has beheld a god,” he said. “She is yet in the vision.” He turned to Eëtíon. “Has she spoken any word?” “She called upon Apollo thrice, but since then this silence. Oh, Nikander, what does it mean?” Nikander bowed his head. Knowing what he knew of Theria’s sacrilege, he fully believed this state to be a doom from Phœbus himself. He believed that she would die. And when he lifted his head, trying to speak, Eëtíon’s anger melted before the anguish in his face. * * * * * Nikander as a worshipper of Apollo had recognized at once the mantic ecstasy. He knew also the accepted means of breaking the ecstatic state. He had Baltè bathe Theria in warm water and gently rub her body. He himself brought his lyre and sitting at the bedside played strong, clear music in the Doric mode. Then fearing that he might have omitted some act, he went out and fetched in the priests to look at her. They gazed, awestruck. “Yes, you are doing all you can,” they said. “The maid is certainly in a vision. But she is far gone toward Hades.”