At the Temple there was sore distress. Priests went to and fro with silent tread, and the great building resounded with cries and lamentations. The great Priestess Saronia wore on her face a death-like calmness.
She had heard of the fishermen finding the body, and remembered the shriek which arose on the gusty air. She dared not speak; it would sound her own death-knell. She could not confess her presence at the margin of the river that fatal night.
Her lips were sealed, her tongue silenced. But dark suspicions floated through her burning brain. Endora knew of this foul matter. Chios was innocent, but during his absence from her the woman must have told him all, and both held the secret.
All this was too horrible to Saronia. Wild, heaving waves of furious thought rushed through her soul, threatening to engulf her reason, but like a shivering barque she determined to struggle through the breakers to the open sea and know the end.
The Temple was desolate, the High Priest gone away for ever; but little did she know his death had saved her life, and the life of her beloved.
CHAPTER XL
TWO MASTER MINDS
The stars were shining softly through the mists of a summer night; the moon had touched the western rim; the winds were sleeping low upon the pine-clad hills, and Nature, weary, lay in sweet repose.
On such a night, a week since the High Priest met his fate, Saronia went up the side of Pion to the cave of Endora.
Disguised as she was, Chios did not know her, and she might have passed by unknown had she not turned towards the place where he waited to receive her.