And she reached her hand to him, with a little smile that flashed for a moment through her tears.
The sun had scarcely risen when the good ship Centaur had cleared the harbour of Miletus and was speeding westward over the waters of the ?gean. Pliny, anxious to secure as far as was possible the party against disaster, had arranged with the captain to make the voyage to Britain direct, touching at as few ports as possible on the way, and these the most obscure. For some weeks after her embarkation, Cleone was prostrated by illnessthe natural consequence of all that she had endured. She was carefully and tenderly nursed by the captain’s wife, for whose companionship the thoughtful care of Pliny had provided. Once or twice during her illness she seemed to herself to catch the tones of familiar voices; and [208] several times, while she was slowly coming back to health, she saw figures which she seemed to know, and which appeared carefully to avoid her. It was not till after she had landed that the secret was revealed. It was her father and mother whom she had seen.
“Forgive him, for my sake,” cried the poor woman, falling on her knees before her child; “you are all that he, that we, have left to us.”
The old man stood two or three paces behind, his head bowed down with a shame and a remorse that passed all utterance. Cleone threw her arms round his neck. Her tenderness divined that it was to him who had sinned that her love must first be shown. And the mother, to whom, by all laws of justice, that first embrace was due, was glad to have it so.
Lucilius had lost his son, who died the day after the removal of the sisters to Ephesus. Most of his property had been spent in purchasing the Proconsul’s favour; with what remained he had determined to commence a new life in the land for which his daughter was bound. Clitus and Cleone were married at the Christmas festival next after their arrival in the island, which, indeed, they did not reach till late in November. The next Easter Lucilius and his wife were baptized. Of the life of the family thus strangely brought together, [209] little need be said, but that it was remarkably happy and prosperous. As the years went on, a little Bion and a little Rhoda recalled the sweet and tender memory of those who were sleeping far away under an Asian sky,far away, but in that “sure and certain hope” which under all skies is still the same. Both were dear to their good neighbour Fabius, one of the senators of their little colony; but it was to Rhoda that the stout soldier-farmer would talk of one who had borne her name in days long past, best and most beautiful of women upon earth, and now bearing the martyr’s palm before the Throne in heaven.