and a peach in there for you; I must keep the other for little Philo."




CHAPTER IV.

Klea went quickly on towards the temple, without listening to Irene's
excuses. She paid no heed to the worshippers who filled the forecourt,
praying either with heads bent low or with uplifted arms or, if they were
of Egyptian extraction, kneeling on the smooth stone pavement, for, even
as she entered, she had already begun to turn in supplication to the
divinity.

She crossed the great hall of the sanctuary, which was open only to the
initiated and to the temple-servants, of whom she was one. Here all
around her stood a crowd of slender columns, their shafts crowned with
gracefully curved flower calyxes, like stems supporting lilies, over her
head she saw in the ceiling an image of the midnight sky with the bright,
unresting and ever-restful stars; the planets and fixed stars in their
golden barks looked down on her silently. Yes! here were the twilight
and stillness befitting a personal communion with the divinity.

The pillars appeared to her fancy like a forest of giant growth, and it
seemed to her that the perfume of the incense emanated from the gorgeous
floral capitals that crowned them; it penetrated her senses, which were
rendered more acute by fasting and agitation, with a sort of
intoxication. Her eyes were raised to heaven, her arms crossed over her
bosom as she traversed this vast hall, and with trembling steps
approached a smaller and lower chamber, where in the furthest and darkest