"Now go," cried the proconsul, when she had done, and he had noted her soft, deep, devoted gaze at one who was not there; "now go before I slay you!" And this new Demetrios whom she then saw was featured like a devil in sore torment.
Wonderingly Melicent obeyed him.
Thought Melicent, who was too proud to show her anguish: "I could have borne aught else, but this I am too cowardly to bear without complaint. I am a very contemptible person. I ought to love this Mélusine, who no doubt loves her husband quite as much as I love him--how could a woman do less?--and yet I cannot love her. I can only weep that I, robbed of all joy, and with no children to bewail me, must travel very tediously toward death, a friendless person cursed by fate, while this Mélusine laughs with her children. She has two children, as Demetrios reports. I think the boy must be the more like Perion. I think she must be very happy when she lifts that boy into her lap."
Thus Melicent; and her full-blooded husband was not much more light-hearted. He went away from Nacumera shortly, in a shaking rage which robbed him of his hands' control, intent to kill and pillage, and, in fine, to make all other persons share his misery.