“How you always contrive to embitter my happiness!” cried Arsinoe.  “I know very well that nothing that I can do can ever be right in your eyes; still, we are sisters, and you need not set your teeth and grudge your words, and shrug your shoulders when I tell you of things which, even a stranger, if I were to confide them to her, would rejoice over with me.  You are so cold and heartless!  I dare say you will betray me to my father—­”

But Arsinoe did not finish her sentence, for Selene looked up at her with a mixture of suffering and alarm, and said: 

“I cannot be glad—­I am in too much pain.”  As she spoke the tears ran down her cheeks and as soon as Arsinoe saw them she felt a return of pity for the sick girl, bent over and kissed her cheeks once, twice, thrice; but Selene pushed her aside and murmured piteously: 

“Leave me—­pray leave me; go away, I can bear it no longer.”  She turned her face to the wall, sobbing aloud.  Arsinoe attempted once more to show her some marks of affection, but her sister pushed her away still more decidedly, crying out loudly, as if in desperation:  “I shall die if you do not leave me alone.”

And the happier girl, whose best offerings were thus disdained by her only female friend, went weeping away to await her father’s return outside the door of the widow’s house.

When Hannah went to lay fresh handkerchiefs on Selene’s wounds she saw that she had been crying, but she did not enquire into the reason of her tears.  Towards evening the widow explained to her patient that she must leave her alone for half an hour, for that she and Mary were going out to pray to their God with their brethren and sisters, and they would pray for her also.

“Leave me, only leave me,” said Selene, “as it is, so it is—­there are no gods.”

“Gods?” replied Hannah.  “No.  But there is one good and loving Father in Heaven, and you soon shall learn to know him.”

“I know him, well!” muttered the sick girl with keen irony.

No sooner was she alone than she sat up in bed, and flung the flowers, which had been lying on it, far from her across the room, twisted the pin of the brooch till it was broken, and did not stir a finger to save the gold setting and engraved stone when they fell between the bed and wall of the room.  Then she lay staring at the ceiling, and did not stir again.  It was now quite dark.  The lilies and honeysuckle in the great nosegay outside the window began to smell more strongly, and their perfume forced itself inexorably on her senses, rendered painfully acute by fever.  She perceived it at every breath she drew, and not for a minute would it let her forget her wrecked happiness, and the wretchedness of her heart, till the heavy sweetness of the flowers became more unendurable than the most pungent odor, and she drew the coverlet over her head to escape this new torment; but she soon cast it off again, for she thought she should be suffocated