“Once another maid slept here,” said Julia with a sigh, glancing at the white bed in the corner.

“Yes,” said Miriam, “she was named Flavia, was she not, your only child?  Nay, do not be astonished.  I have heard so much of her that I seem to have known her well, who can be known no more—­here.”

“Did Gallus tell you?” asked Julia.  “He used rarely to speak of her.”

Miriam nodded.  “Gallus told me.  You see he was very good to me and we became friends.  For all that he has done, may Heaven bless him, who, although he seems rough, has so kind a heart.”

“Yes, may Heaven bless all of us, living and dead,” answered Julia.  Then she kissed Miriam and left her to her rest.

When Miriam came out of her bedchamber on the following morning, she found Gallus clad in his body armour, now new cleaned, though dinted with many a blow, standing in the court and watching the water which squirted from a leaden pipe to fall into a little basin.

“Greeting, daughter,” he said, looking up.  “I trust that you have rested well beneath my roof who have sojourned so long in tents.”

“Very well,” she answered, adding, “If I might ask it, why do you wear your mail here in peaceful Rome?”

“Because I am summoned to have an audience of Caesar, now within an hour.”

“Is Titus come, then?” she asked hurriedly.

“Nay, nay, not Titus Caesar, but Vespasian Caesar, his father, to whom I must make report of all that was passing in Judaea when we left, of the treasure that I brought with me and—­of yourself.”

“Oh!  Gallus,” said Miriam, “will he take me away from your charge?”

“I know not.  I hope not.  But who can say?  It is as his fancy may move him.  But if he listens to me I swear that you shall stay here for ever; be sure of that.”

Then he went, leaning on a spear shaft, for the wound in his leg had caused it to shrink so much that he could never hope to be sound again.

Three hours later he returned to find the two women waiting for him anxiously enough.  Julia glanced at his face as he came through the door of the street wall into the vestibulum or courtyard where they were waiting.

“Have no fear,” she said.  “When Gallus looks so solemn he brings good tidings, for if they are bad he smiles and makes light of them,” and advancing she took him by the hand and led him past the porter’s room into the atrium.

“What news, husband?” she asked when the door was shut behind them so that none might overhear their talk.

“Well,” he answered, “first, my fighting days are over, since I am discharged the army, the physicians declaring that my leg will never be well again.  Wife, why do you not weep?”

“Because I rejoice,” answered Julia calmly.  “Thirty years of war and bloodshed are enough for any man.  You have done your work.  It is time that you should rest who have been spared so long, and at least I have saved while you were away, and there will be food to fill our mouths.”