After a single admiring survey of the hall in which he had been left alone, the pretended Philadelphus fortified himself against his most critical test.

Without a sound, without even so much as the rustling of a garment to announce her, a woman emerged from a passage leading into the interior of the house.  He confronted the only person in Jerusalem who might know him as an impostor.

The woolen chiton of her countrywomen draped a figure almost too slender, yet perfect in its delicate modeling.  Though her eyes were black, her hair was fair and brilliant with a wash of gold powder.  Her features were Hellenic, cold, pure and classic, and for all her youth and beauty there was an atmosphere about her of middle-age, immense experience, and old sagacity.

The pretender braced himself for the scrutiny the eyes made of him.

“You are that Philadelphus, as my servant tells me?” she asked.

“I am he.”

She inclined her head.

“Welcome; in the name of all the need of you!”

After a silence he came closer and lifted her hand to his lips.  He added nothing, but presently raised his eyes softened with feeling and unexpressed appreciation.

“Certainly you have suffered, lady,” he said finally in a subdued tone.  “But please God you will not suffer alone hereafter.”

Amaryllis’ non-committal front changed.

“You are gentler of speech than is common among the Maccabees,” she said.

“Nevertheless the Maccabees are the more touched by devotion,” he maintained.

He led her to the exedra, unslung his wallet and laid it on the lectern before them.

“When thou hast leisure, perchance thou wilt find interest in these papers here.”

She thanked him and there was a moment’s silence.  Under his lashes the impostor saw that he had not filled her fancied picture of the Maccabee made from long years of correspondence.  She was disappointed; her intuition was perplexed.  He would complete his work and get away in time.

“My wife is here?” he asked.

“She came yesterday,” Amaryllis responded, clapping her hands in summons.  A female servant of such prepossessing appearance that Philadelphus looked at her again, bowed in the archway.

“Send hither the princess,” Amaryllis said.

“The princess,” Philadelphus repeated to himself.  “Then, by Ate, I am the prince!”

“While we wait,” Amaryllis continued, “let us talk of details which you may not have patience to hear after she comes.  Jerusalem, as you have learned, is in grave danger—­”

“Jerusalem should fear the Roman army less than herself.  I have seen its disease.”

“The citizens will hail Titus as a deliverer.  But this week’s ceremonies are bringing us disaster.  Should Titus be forced to lay siege about us, how shall we feed this multitude of a million on the supplies gathered for only a third of that number?”