Sympathy, disapproval, and fear, which, however, was always blended with admiration of his transcendent powers, had merged into love.  Though he had disdained to return it, it had nevertheless been perfectly evident that he needed her, and valued her and her opinion.  Often as their views differed, the obstinate boy and youth had never allowed any one except herself a strong influence over his acts and conduct.  But, far as he seemed to wander from the paths which she believed the right ones, she had always held fast to the conviction that he was a man of noble nature, and an artist who, if he only once fixed his eyes upon the true goal, would far surpass by his mighty power the other Alexandrian sculptors, whatever names they bore, and perhaps even Myrtilus.

To the great vexation of her father who, after her mother’s death, in an hour when his heart was softened, had promised that he would never impose any constraint upon her in the choice of a husband, she had hitherto rejected every suitor.  She had showed even the distinguished Philotas in Pelusium, without the least reserve, that he was seeking her in vain; for just at that time she thought she had perceived that Hermon returned her love, and after his abrupt departure it had become perfectly evident that the happiness of her life depended upon him.

The terrible misfortune which had now befallen him had only bound her more firmly to the man she loved.  She felt that she belonged to him indissolubly, and the leech’s positive assurance that his blindness was incurable had only increased the magic of the thought of being and affording tenfold more to the man bereft of sight than when, possessing his vision, the world, life, and art belonged to him.  To be able to lavish everything upon the most beloved of mortals, and do whatever her warm, ever-helpful heart prompted, seemed to her a special favour of the gods in whom she believed.

That it was Demeter, to the ranks of whose priestesses she belonged, who was so closely associated with his blinding, also seemed to her no mere work of chance.  The goddess on whom Hermon had bestowed the features of her own face had deprived him of sight to confer upon her the happiness of brightening and beautifying the darkness of his life.

If she saw aright, and it was only the fear of obtaining, with herself, her wealth, that still kept him from her, the path which would finally unite them must be found at last.  She hoped to conquer also her father’s reluctance to give his only child in marriage to a blind man, especially as Hermon’s last work promised to give him the right to rank with the best artists of his age.

The matron had listened to this confession with an agitated heart.  She had transported herself in imagination into the soul of the girl’s mother, and brought before her mind what objections the dead woman would have made to her daughter’s union with a man deprived of sight; but Daphne had firmly insisted upon her wish, and supported it by many a sensible and surprising answer.  She was beyond childhood, and her three-and-twenty years enabled her to realize the consequences which so unusual a marriage threatened to entail.