“We were on a journey,” said Corobios. “Five robbers leaped from ambush upon Pythias. It was him they were after, not me. I whipped out my sword and struck at one of them. And just at that moment Pythias was thrown in the struggle straight under my blade. It cut him to the bone. Oh, if he had only lived to exculpate me! If he had only spoken some word. But there was no time. I saw only his eyes raised to me in agony, in reproach. O priest—in terrible reproach. Ah, I see them now! Wherever I go I see them! The Eumenides are coming upon me. To my children’s children will the curse run unless Apollo will clean me.” How Theria loved her father as he leaned toward the man laying his hand upon the shaking shoulder, fearless of the terrible curse which could run so quickly from man to man. “The Son of Leto will hear you,” Nikander said. “Our god is pitiful of those whose hearts are clean. Do not fear. To-morrow you shall consult the god. I shall see that you go in first of them all to the Oracle. Your case is needy.” The interview was long. For as the man grew quieter, Nikander did not fail to sound him as to his attitude in the coming war. Every pilgrim was so tested by Nikander. Thus Nikander learned the public mind. At Corobios’s departure Nikander wandered back to where Theria sat. He was quite unaware that he was seeking his daughter again. Theria ran toward him with overflowing eyes. “Oh the poor man, the poor man! Father, surely the Oracle will help him—it must help him!” “The poor man, hey! What do you know about the poor man? Theria, I will not have you listening from corners—do you heed me?” “But why did the dying Pythias reproach him? Couldn’t he see that Corobios didn’t mean to hurt him? Couldn’t he trust his friend that much?” “Probably Pythias didn’t blame Corobios at all. The eyes were in death-agony, already unconscious.” “But will the Pythia tell him that? After all, how can the Pythia help him? Corobios is a murderer—poor man! poor man!” “Corobios is not a murderer, Theria. Murder is of the heart’s intention, not the hand’s mistake. Nay, his hands are clean; cannot you see that?” Nikander was forgetting the proper reproaches for Theria’s eavesdropping. The question of blood-guilt was a burning one at Delphi. It concerned a brand-new policy of the Oracle: that sin was a thing of the heart and not of outward accident. This moral advance is, in every age, the most important and most difficult for the human mind to achieve. Nikander was fighting more battles than the defence against the Persian. “I wish,” said Nikander, “the people could see that the curse does not come that way—without fault of the accursed. Corobios is not under a curse.” “Not under a curse?” repeated Theria. “Will the god tell him that?” “How do I know what the god will tell him?” answered Nikander piously. “Oh, if I were the Pythia I would pray the dear Son of Leto till he gave me that answer.” “But you are not the Pythia.”