She laughed, though it seemed that a hard note had entered her voice.

“You will permit me, then, to surmise for myself why you came to Jerusalem.  You seem to have known this girl before.  I shall not ask you; in return for that promise that I may conclude what I will.”

“If you are too discerning, lady,” he answered, while his eyes sought down the corridor for a glimpse of the one he had come to see, “you are dangerous.”

“And what then?”

“I must devise a way to silence you.”

She lifted her brows.  In that very speech was the portrait of the Maccabee that she had come to love through letters.

“There is something familiar in your mood,” she said thoughtfully.  “It seems that I have known you—­for many years.”

He made no answer.  He had said all that he wished to say to this woman.  She noted his silence and rose.

“I shall send the girl to you.”

“Thou art good,” he answered and she withdrew.

A moment later Laodice came into the chamber.  She was not startled.  In her innocent soul she did not realize that this was a sign of the depth of her love for him.  He rose and met her half-way across the hall; took her hand and held it while they walked back to the exedra, and gazed at her face for evidence that her sojourn in this house had been unhappy or otherwise; noted that she had let down her hair and braided it; observed every infinitesimal change that can attract only the lover’s eye.

“Sit,” he said, giving her a place beside him.  “I came of habit to see you.  Of habit, I was interrupted.  Is there no way that I can talk to you without the resentment of some one who flourishes a better right to be with you than I can show?”

“Where hast thou been,” Laodice asked, “so long?”

“Was it long,” he demanded impulsively, “to you?”

“New places, new faces, uncertainty and other things make time seem long,” she explained hastily.

“Nay, then,” he said, “I have been busy.  I have been attending to that labor I had in mind for Judea, of which we spoke in the hills that morning.”

Laodice drew in a quick breath.  Then some one, if not herself or the husband who had denied her, was at work for Judea.

“There is no nation, here, for a king,” he went on.  “It is a great horde that needs organization.  It wants a leader.  I am ambitious and Judea will be the prize to the ablest man.  Seest thou mine intent?”

“You—­you aspire—­” she began and halted, suddenly impressed with the complication his announcement had effected.

“Go on,” he said.

“You would take Judea?”

“I would.”

“But it belongs of descent to the Maccabees!”

“To Philadelphus Maccabaeus, yes; but what is he doing?”

She dropped her head.

“Nothing,” she said in a half-whisper.