As soon as the two lovers were left alone again Klea seized the Roman’s hand, and said passionately:  “You have spoken many tender words to me, and I thank you for them; but I am wont always to be honest, and less than any one could I deceive you.  Whatever your love bestows upon me will always be a free gift, since you owe me nothing at all and I owe you infinitely much; for I know now that you have snatched my sister from the clutches of the mightiest in the land while I, when I heard that Irene had gone away with you, and that murder threatened your life, believed implicitly that on the contrary you had lured the child away to become your sweetheart, and then—­then I hated you, and then—­I must confess it\—­in my horrible distraction I wished you dead!”

“And you think that wish can offend me or hurt me?” said Publius.  “No, my child; it only proves to me that you love me as I could wish to be loved.  Such rage under such circumstances is but the dark shadow cast by love, and is as inseparable from love as from any tangible body.  Where it is absent there is no such thing as real love present—­only an airy vision, a phantom, a mockery.  Such an one as Klea does not love nor hate by halves; but there are mysterious workings in your soul as in that of every other woman.  How did the wish that you could see me dead turn into the fearful resolve to let yourself be killed in my stead?”

“I saw the murderers,” answered Klea, “and I was overwhelmed with horror of them and of their schemes, and of all that had to do with them; I would not destroy Irene’s happiness, and I loved you even more deeply than I hated you; and then—­but let us not speak of it.”

“Nay-tell me all.”

“Then there was a moment—­”

“Well, Klea?”

“Then—­in these last hours, while we have been sitting hand in hand by the body of poor Serapion, and hardly speaking, I have felt it all over again—­then the midnight hymn of the priests fell upon my heart, and as I lifted up my soul in prayer at their pious chant I felt as if all my inmost heart had been frozen and hardened, and was reviving again to new life and tenderness and warmth.  I could not help thinking of all that is good and right, and I made up my mind to sacrifice myself for you and for Irene’s happiness far more quickly and easily than I could give it up afterwards.  My father was one of the followers of Zeno—­”

“And you,” interrupted Publius, “thought you were acting in accordance with the doctrine of the Stoa.  I also am familiar with it, but I do not know the man who is so virtuous and wise that he can live and act, as that teaching prescribes, in the heat of the struggle of life, or who is the living representative in flesh and blood of the whole code of ethics, not sinning against one of its laws and embodying it in himself.  Did you ever hear of the peace of mind, the lofty indifference and equanimity of the Stoic sages?  You look as if the question