“But why did the dying Pythias reproach him? Couldn’t he see that Corobios didn’t mean to hurt him? Couldn’t he trust his friend that much?”
“Probably Pythias didn’t blame Corobios at all. The eyes were in death-agony, already unconscious.”
“But will the Pythia tell him that? After all, how can the Pythia help him? Corobios is a murderer—poor man! poor man!”
“Corobios is not a murderer, Theria. Murder is of the heart’s intention, not the hand’s mistake. Nay, his hands are clean; cannot you see that?”
Nikander was forgetting the proper reproaches for Theria’s eavesdropping. The question of blood-guilt was a burning one at Delphi. It concerned a brand-new policy of the Oracle: that sin was a thing of the heart and not of outward accident. This moral advance is, in every age, the most important and most difficult for the human mind to achieve. Nikander was fighting more battles than the defence against the Persian.
“I wish,” said Nikander, “the people could see that the curse does not come that way—without fault of the accursed. Corobios is not under a curse.”
“Not under a curse?” repeated Theria. “Will the god tell him that?”
“How do I know what the god will tell him?” answered Nikander piously.
“Oh, if I were the Pythia I would pray the dear Son of Leto till he gave me that answer.”