A fearful thing that tripod. It stood in a dark cavern, and the breath of the god rushed up from a gulf below and filled her who was set there. How would it feel—that breath upon her? What would it do to her, that ghostly thing? She shook her shoulders as if to free them of a load. Oh, dear Paian, what if it did harm her? That was nothing, nothing! Could she win the good message? Could she by prayers, importunity, and ritual-supplication win from the god the better fate for Greece? Apollo had already given forth the terror and warning. Could she push that evil back as with her two hands? All the courage, the confidence, which had so easily been hers sank out of her. Her heart, which had been like a pool reflecting the sky of the god, was suddenly empty. She longed to go to her mother to hide in her arms. But Melantho (how well she knew) would only weep and add weakness to her own. Her father? It had been her father’s detachment, his way of laying the task impersonally upon her, forgetting the daughter upon whom he laid it—it was this that made her lonely. She thought of Dryas, of Lycophron, of Baltè. She could only hide her face in her hands, rejecting the thought of each. And the black loneliness grew at each rejection. “Is there someone else? Isn’t there any one else?” she thought wildly. And like answer to her thought came the clear picture to her closed eyes. The Argive standing in the moon-lit lane with face upturned to hers. “Can you stop the stream of Castaly? Even so will my love refresh you whether you will or not.” She lifted up her face timidly in the empty room. Ah, he had loved her. He had come again and again with his love. So faithful, so patient, and how true he was to Greece! How ready to fight for Hellas! If she should go to the window to-night, would he give her strength—strength for her fearful duty? But how could he? Would he reach up his hands? What could he say? Suddenly she was trembling so that she had to sit down, clasping her hands, unclasping them again. How could he do anything except to put arms about her as she had longed for her mother to do? But these arms as they stole about her spirit were not like Melantho’s. They thrilled her, brought her near to weeping. They were the arms of love, the love he had told of, the love that understood the inmost of her heart. She began to long so intensely for their comforting that she was frightened. The barriers of her coldness went down at once, leaving her as tender as young spring. Unconsciously she reached out her hands in the dim room. Then a panic assailed her. Perhaps he would not come. Perhaps her long refusal had broken even his faithfulness. Perhaps he would fail her for just this one evening. Then it would be too late. To-morrow she would be locked in the Pythia House. Then even to see him would be sin.