Meanwhile, seeing Laodice falter, the woman’s lip curled.

“Weak!  Very weak, Philadelphus,” she said.  “You must invent something better.  The success of a jest is all that pardons a jester.”

“She robbed me!” Laodice panted impotently.  “Robbed me, after my father had given her refuge!”

“Of what?” the Greek asked.

“My proofs—­and two hundred talents!”

“Lady,” the actress said to Amaryllis, “my husband’s emissary, Aquila, was a pagan.  He had with him, on our journey, this woman and her old deformed father who fled when the plague broke out among us.  She hoped, I surmise, that we should all die on the way.  Even Samson gave up secrets to Delilah, and this Aquila was no better than Samson.”

Oriental fury fulminated in the eyes of Laodice.  Philadelphus, fearing that she was about to spring at the throat of her traducer, sprang between the two women.  In his eyes shone immense admiration at that moment.

There was an instant of critical silence.  Then Laodice drew herself up with a sudden accession of strength.

“Madam,” she said coldly to Amaryllis, “with-hold thy judgment a few days.  I shall send my servant back to Ascalon for other proof. He can go safely, for he has had the plague.”

Philadelphus started; the actress flinched.

“Friend,” Philadelphus said in his smooth way, “I came upon this woman by the wayside in the hills.  I and a wayfarer cast a coin for possession of her—­and the other man won.  Give thyself no concern.”

Laodice flung her hands over her face and shrank in an agony of shame down upon the exedra.  Amaryllis looked down on her bowed head.

“Is it true?” she asked.  After a moment Laodice raised herself.

“God of Israel,” she said in a low voice, “how hast Thy servant deserved these things!”

There was a space of silence, in which the two impostors turned together and talking between themselves of anything but the recent interview walked out of the chamber.

After a time Laodice lifted her head and spoke to the Greek.

“If thou wilt give me shelter, madam, for a few days only, I promise thee thou shalt not regret it,” she said.

The girl was interesting and Amaryllis had been disappointed in Philadelphus.  Nothing tender or compassionate; only a little curiosity, a little rancor, a little ennui and a faint instinctive hope that something of interest might yet develop, moved the Greek.

“Send your servant to Ascalon for proofs,” she said.  “I shall give you shelter here until you are proved undeserving of it.  And since the times are uncertain, do not delay.”

Chapter X

THE STORY OF A DIVINE TRAGEDY

The following morning, there was a rap at the door of the chamber to which Laodice had been led and informed that it was her own.