“Good morning to you, daughter,” he said.  “How have you slept after your long journey?” and paused, expecting to be answered with some babbling, gentle nonsense such as flowed from Miriam’s lips in her illness.  But instead of this she rose and stood before him looking confused.  Then she replied: 

“Sir, I thank you, I have slept well; but tell me, is not yonder town Tyre, and is not this the garden of my grandfather, Benoni, where I used to wander?  Nay, how can it be?  So long has passed since I walked in this garden, and so many things have happened—­terrible, terrible things which I cannot remember,” and she hid her eyes in her hand and moaned.

“Don’t try to remember them,” he said cheerfully.  “There is so much in life that it is better to forget.  Yes, this is Tyre, sure enough.  You could not recognise it last night because it was too dark, and this garden, I am told, did belong to Benoni.  Who it belongs to now I do not know.  To you, I suppose, and through you to Caesar.”

Now while he spoke thus somewhat at random, for he was watching her all the while, Miriam kept her eyes fixed upon his face, as though she searched there for something which she could but half recall.  Suddenly an inspiration entered into them and she said: 

“Now I have it!  You are the Roman captain, Gallus, who brought me the letter from——­” and she paused, thrusting her hand into the bosom of her robe, then went on with something like a sob:  “Oh! it is gone.  How did it go?  Let me think.”

“Don’t think,” said Gallus; “there are so many things in the world which it is better not to think about.  Yes, as it happens, I am that man, and some years ago I did bring you the letter from Marcus, called The Fortunate.  Also, as it chanced, I never forgot your sweet face and knew it again at a time when it was well that you should find a friend.  No, we won’t talk about it now.  Look, the old slave calls you.  It is time that you should break your fast, and I also must eat and have my wound dressed.  Afterwards we will talk.”

All that morning Miriam saw nothing more of Gallus.  Indeed, he did not mean that she should, since he was sure that her new-found sense ought not to be overstrained at first, lest it should break down again, never to recover.  So she went out and sat alone by the garden beach, for the soldiers had orders to respect her privacy, and gazed at the sea.

As she sat thus in quiet, event by event the terrible past came back to her.  She remembered it all now—­their flight from Tyre; the march into Jerusalem; the sojourn in the dark with the Essenes; the Old Tower and what befell there; the escape of Marcus; her trial before the Sanhedrim; the execution of her sentence upon the gateway; and then that fearful night when the flames of the burning Temple scorched to her very brain, and the sights and sounds of slaughter withered her heart.  After this she could recall but one more thing—­the vision of the majestic