At this Andreas whispered to her:  “You are afraid lest I should prevent your coming with us?  But it is not so; and, indeed, of what use would it be?  You made your way past the guards to the senator’s coach; you came across the lake, and through the darkness and the drunken rabble in the streets; if I were to lock you in, you would be brave enough to jump out of the window.  No, no; I confess you have conquered my objections—­ indeed, if you should now refuse your assistance, I should be obliged to crave it.  But Ptolemaeus wishes to leave Diodoros quite undisturbed till daybreak.  He is now gone to the Serapeum to find a good place for him.  You, too, need rest, and you shall be waked in good time.  Go, now, with Dame Katharine.—­As to your relations,” he added, to Agatha, “do not be uneasy.  A boy is already on his way to your father, to tell him where you are for the night.”

The deaconess led the two girls to a room where there was a large double bed.  Here the new friends stretched their weary limbs; but, tired as they were, neither of them seemed disposed to sleep; they were so happy to have found each other, and had so much to ask and tell each other!  As soon as Katharine had lighted a three-branched lamp she left them to themselves, and then their talk began.

Agatha, clinging to her new friend, laid her head on Melissa’s shoulder; and as Melissa looked on the beautiful face, and remembered the fond passion which her heedless brother had conceived for its twin image, or as now and again the Christian girl’s loving words appealed to her more especially, she stroked the long, flowing tresses of her brown hair.

It needed, indeed, no more than a common feeling, an experience gone through together, an hour of confidential solitude, to join the hearts of the two maidens; and as they awaited the day, shoulder to shoulder in uninterrupted chat, they felt as though they had shared every joy and sorrow from the cradle.  Agatha’s weaker nature found a support in the calm strength of will which was evident in many things Melissa said; and when the Christian opened her tender and pitying heart to Melissa with touching candor, it was like a view into a new but most inviting world.

Agatha’s extreme beauty, too, struck the artist’s daughter as something divine, and her eye often rested admiringly on her new friend’s pure and regular features.

When Agatha inquired of her about her father, Melissa briefly replied, that since her mother’s death he was often moody and rough, but that he had a good, kind heart.  The Christian girl, on the contrary, spoke with enthusiasm of the warm, human loving-kindness of the man to whom she owed her being; and the picture she drew of her home life was so fair, that the little heathen could hardly believe in its truth.  Her father, Agatha said, lived in constant warfare with the misery and suffering of his fellow-creatures, and he was, in fact, able to make those about him happy and prosperous.  The poorest were dearest to his loving heart, and on his estate across the lake he had collected none but the sick and wretched.  The care of the children was left to her, and the little ones clung to her as if she were their mother.  She had neither brother nor sister.—­ And so the conversation turned on Alexander, of whom Agatha could never hear enough.