She made no answer.

“You owe it me,” he added presently.  “Behold what damaging things I have intrusted to you.  You can ruin me by the droop of an eyelash.”

“I should have told you at first who I am,” she said finally.  “I will not betray what you told me in ignorance—­”

“But Amaryllis told me this before you came.”

“Nevertheless, tell me no more; if I must be a partizan, I shall be a partizan to my husband.”

“There is nothing for you here, clinging to this man,” he continued persuasively.  “This woman brought him a great dowry.  She is ambitious and therefore jealous.  You will win nothing but mistreatment, and worse, if you stay here for him.”

“It is my place,” she said.

After a moment’s helpless silence, he demanded bitterly: 

“Dost thou love that man?”

The truth leaped to her lips with such wilful force that he read the reply on her face, though her eyes were down and by intense resolution she restrained the denial.  He was close to her, speaking quickly under the pressure of his earnestness.

“I have sacrificed name, birthright, fortune—­even honor—­that I might be free to love thee!”

She drew back from him hurriedly, afraid that his very insistence would destroy her fortitude.

“Let me not have bankrupted myself for a trust thou wilt not give!”

“It—­it is not mine to give,” she stammered.

“Otherwise—­otherwise—­” he prompted, leaning near her.  But she put him back from her, desperately.

“Go, go!” she whispered.  “I hear—­I hear Philadelphus!”

He turned from her obediently.

“It is not my last hope,” he said to himself.  “Neither has she suffered her last perplexity in this house.  I shall come again.”

He passed out into the streets of Jerusalem.

Chapter XVI

THE SPREAD NET

Beginning with the moment that the Maccabee first entered her hall, Amaryllis struggled with a perplexity.  Certain discrepancies in the hastily concocted story which that stern compelling stranger who had called himself Hesper of Ephesus had told had started into life a doubt so feeble that it was little more than a sensation.

Love and its signs had been a lifelong study to her; she knew its stubbornness; she was wise in the judgment of human nature to know that love in this stranger was no light thing to be dislodged.  And to finish the sum of her perplexities, she felt in her own heart the kindling of a sorrowful longing to be preferred by a spirit strong, forceful and magnetic as was that of the man who had called himself Hesper of Ephesus.

With the egotism of the courtezan she summarized her charms.  Even there were spirits in that fleshly land of Judea to whom the delicate refinement of her beauty, the reserve of her bearing and the power of her mentality had appealed more strongly than a mere opulence of physical attraction.  She had her ambitions; not the least of these was to be loved by an understanding nature.  The greater the congeniality, the greater the attraction, she argued; but behold, was this iron Hesper, the man of all force, to be dashed and shaken by the rich loveliness of Laodice, who was simply a woman?