“Who is likely to find us here?” said Dada.  “Besides, he has no such ideas and motives as you suppose.  It is what he calls my soul that he cares for and not myself; and he wanted to take me away, not to his own house, but to some man who would be the physician of my soul, he said.  I am generally ready enough to laugh, but what he said was so impressive and solemn, and so wonderfully earnest and startling that I could not jest over it.  At last I was more angry at his daring to speak to me in such a way than any of you ever thought I could be, and that drove him half mad.  You came in, mother, just as the gentleman had fallen on his knees to implore me to leave you.”

“And I gave him my mind on the subject,” retorted Herse with grim satisfaction.  “I let him know what I thought of him.  He may talk about the soul—­what he is after is the girl.  I know these Christians and I know what the upshot will be.  He will take advantage of the edict to gain his ends, and then you will be separated from us and shut up in a reformatory or a refuge or a cloister or whatever they call their dismal prisons, and will learn more about your soul than you will care to know.  It will be all over then with singing, and laughter, and amusement.  Now you know the truth, and if you are wise you will keep out of his way till we leave Alexandria; and that will be as soon as possible, if you listen to reason, Karnis.”

She spoke with such earnest conviction that Dada remained silent with downcast eyes, and Karnis sat up to think the matter over.

However, there was no time now for further reflection; the steward came in and desired that he, with his son and Agne should go at once to Gorgo to practise the lament of Isis.

This command did not include Herse and Dada, who remained on the barge.  Herse having plenty to occupy her in the lower rooms, Dada went on deck and watched the others on their way to the house; then she sat looking at the shipwrights at their work and tossed fruit and sweetmeats, the remains of their dessert, for the children to catch who were playing on the shore.  Meanwhile she thought over Marcus’ startling speech, Damia’s injunctions and Herse’s warnings.

At first it seemed to her that Herse might be right, but by degrees she fell back into her old conviction that the young Christian could mean no harm by her; and she felt as sure that he would find her out wherever she might hide herself, as that it was her pretty and much-admired little person that he sought to win, and not her soul—­for what could such an airy nothing as a soul profit a lover?  How rapturously he had described her charms, how candidly he had owned that her image was always before him even in his dreams, that he could not and would not give her up—­nay, that he was ready to lay down his life to save her soul.  Only a man in love could speak like this and a man so desperately in love can achieve whatever he will.  On her way from the Xenodochium to the