But idle lamenting was of as little use here as at any other time; so she resolutely drew her veil closer round her head and called to her brother, "Wait here till I return!"
"What are you going to do?" asked Alexander, startled.
"I am going back to the invalid," she explained, decisively.
On this her brother seized her arm, and, wildly excited, forbade this step in the name of his father.
But at his vehement shout, "I will not allow it!" she struggled to free herself, and cried out to him:
"And you? Did not you, whose life is a thousand times more important than mine, of your own free-will go into captivity and to death in order to save our father?"
"It was for my sake that he had been robbed of his freedom," interrupted
Alexander; but she added, quickly:
"And if I had not thought only of myself, the command to release him and
Philip would by this time have been at the harbor. I am going."
Alexander then took his hand from her arm, and exclaimed, as if urged by some internal force, "Well, then, go!"
"And you," continued Melissa, hastily, "go and seek the lady Euryale. She is expecting me. Tell her all, and beg her in my name to go to rest. Also tell her I remembered the sentence about the time, which was fulfilled. . . . Mark the words. If I am running again into danger, tell her that I do it because a voice says to me that it is right. And it is right, believe me, Alexander!"