Regretful thoughts succeeded one another rapidly. Thoth was evidently a great ruler, who had been accustomed to the most slavish obedience. He was, or had been, desirous of effecting a revolution in the treatment of women, and he had for months treated her with deference and tenderness. Had she rejected his proposal as calmly as it was made, had she not attempted to get fire from snow, at any rate he would have kept to his word and restored her to Greece. She ought to have understood how the nature of the man must have been distorted by his descent through generations of women-haters, and to have wondered at the advances which he had made instead of expecting the impossible. Never, she thought, could she have become his wife, but she might have been his devoted friend. She would have encouraged him in his projects of reform,—she could have liberated her fellow-women. Now all was over. She felt covered with shame as she thought how she must have appeared to Thoth,—worse than a sensuous Persian—a mere animal. How he must have despised her when she actually suggested that he should surrender himself to her, as the first of his name to the woman who deceived him. She despised herself, and for the moment her spirit was crushed. She longed for some sympathy. She called on her little servants—there was no answer. She went to the door—it was fastened. She was confined in solitude. She wept bitterly. * * * * * But after a time her courage and resolution revived, and she thought of the only means of escape now open—death by her own hand. The sun was high in the heaven, and the garden of the palace was still open to her. She determined to drink again of the freshness of life before she died. She walked along the beautiful paths, and watched with pleasure the birds and insects. Earth and air seemed full of life, and death seemed terrible. She recalled the wretched fate of the heroines of her native tragic poets. Before she had often wondered why they had not put a term to their sufferings by a moment’s pain. She knew now. It seemed to her a thing impossible in nature—deliberately to take one’s life, even to avoid misery. She repented that she had not already done the deed when passion had given her courage. The point of the dagger seemed very cold and hard,—life seemed very sweet, and in the glaring sun the gloom of death seemed most black and dismal. At least, if permitted, she must wait till night. Then she thought on what might have been her fate—on love unknown and hopes shattered. Again her courage and resolution vanished, and she trembled. She longed with every fibre of her being for some creature to speak with. She almost began to talk to the birds and lizards. Suddenly her heart stood still with joy—she heard through the trees the twittering song of one of the pigmies, and she rushed in pursuit.