Heretofore, the life of Caleb had been ruled by two passions—­ambition and the love of Miriam.  He had aspired to be ruler of the Jews, perhaps their king, and to this end had plotted and fought for the expulsion of the Romans from Judaea.  He had taken part in a hundred desperate battles.  Again and again he had risked his life; again and again he had escaped.  For one so young he had reached high rank, till he was numbered among the first of their captains.

Then came the end, the last hideous struggle and the downfall.  Once more his life was left in him.  Where men perished by the hundred thousand he escaped, winning safety, not through the desire of it, but because of the love of Miriam which drove him on to follow her.  Happily for himself he had hidden money, which, after the gift of his race, he was able to turn to good account, so that now he, who had been a leader in war and council, walked the world as a merchant in Eastern goods.  All that glittering past had gone from him; he might become wealthy, but, Jew as he was, he could never be great nor fill his soul with the glory that it craved.  There remained to him, then, nothing but this passion for one woman among the millions who dwelt beneath the sun, the girl who had been his playmate, whom he loved from the beginning, although she had never loved him, and whom he would love until the end.

Why had she not loved him?  Because of his rival, that accursed Roman, Marcus, the man whom time upon time he had tried to kill, but who had always slipped like water from his hands.  Well, if she was lost to him she was lost to Marcus also, and from that thought he would take such comfort as he might.  Indeed he had no other, for during those dreadful hours the fires of all Gehenna raged in his soul.  He had lost—­but who had found her?

Throughout the long night Caleb tramped round the cold, empty-looking palace, suffering perhaps as he had never suffered before, a thing to be pitied of gods and men.  At length the dawn broke and the light crept down the splendid street, showing here and there groups of weary and half-drunken revellers staggering homewards from the feast, flushed men and dishevelled women.  Others appeared also, humble and industrious citizens going to their daily toil.  Among them were people whose business it was to clean the roads, abroad early this morning, for after the great procession they thought that they might find articles of value let fall by those who walked in it, or by the spectators.  Two of these scavengers began sweeping near the place where Caleb stood, and lightened their toil by laughing at him, asking him if he had spent his night in the gutter and whether he knew his way home.  He replied that he waited for the doors of the house to be opened.

“Which house?” they asked.  “The ‘Fortunate House?’” and they pointed to the marble palace of Marcus, which, as Caleb now saw for the first time, had these words blazoned in gold letters on its portico.