us!  What joys satiated our minds and senses in our own apartments!  What pure, unalloyed nectar of the soul was bestowed upon us by our children—­bliss which we shared with and imparted to each other until neither knew which was the giver and which the receiver!  Everything sad and painful seemed to be effaced from the book of memory; and the child’s dream, the fairy-tale woven by the power of imagination, stood before my soul as a reality—­the same reality, I repeat, which I call my past life.

“And, Charmian, if death comes to-morrow, should I say that he appeared too early—­summoned me ere he permitted life to bestow all its best gifts upon me?  No, no, and again no!  Whoever, in the last hour of existence, can say that the fairest dreams of childhood were surpassed by a long portion of actual life, may consider himself happy, even in the deepest need and on the verge of the grave.

“The aspiration to be first and highest among the women of her own time, which had already thrilled the young girl’s heart, was fulfilled.  The ardent longing for love which, even at that period, pervaded my whole being, was satisfied when I became a loving wife, mother, and Queen, and friendship, through the favour of Destiny, also bestowed upon me its greatest blessings by the hands of Archibius, Charmian, and Iras.

“Now I care not what may happen.  This evening taught me that life had fulfilled its pledges.  But others, too, must be enabled to remember the most brilliant of queens, who was also the most fervently beloved of women.  For this I will provide:  the mausoleum which Gorgias is erecting for me will stand like an indestructible wall between the Cleopatra who to-day still proudly wears the crown and her approaching humiliation and disgrace.

“Now I will go to sleep.  If my awakening brings defeat, sorrow, and death, I have no reason to accuse my fate.  It denied me one thing only the painless peace which the child and the young girl recognized as the chief good; yet Cleopatra will possess that also.  The domain of death, which, as the Egyptians say, loves silence, is opening its doors to me.  The most absolute peace begins upon its threshold—­who knows where it ends?  The vision of the intellect does not extend far enough to discover the boundary where, at the end of eternity—­which in truth is endless—­it is replaced by something else.”

While speaking, the Queen had motioned to her friend to accompany her into her chamber, from which a door led into the children’s room.  An irresistible impulse constrained her to open it and gaze into the dark, empty apartment.