“The animal has a good memory, and greets you in my name.  You were sure to come—­, I knew it!”

The young girl stepped nearer to him, and answered, kindly, “Since you needed me, I gladly followed Philostratus.”

“Because I needed you?” asked the emperor.

“Yes,” she replied, “because you require nursing.”

“Then, to keep you, I shall wish to be ill often,” he answered, quickly; but he added, sadly, “only not so dreadfully ill as I have been to-day.”

One could hear how laborious talking was to him, and the few words he had sought and found, in order to say something kind to Melissa, had so hurt his shattered nerves and head that he sank back, gasping, on the cushions.

Then for some time all was quiet, until Caracalla took his hand from his forehead and continued, as if in excuse: 

“No one seems to know what it is.  And if I talk ever so softly, every word vibrates through my brain.”

“Then you must not speak,” interrupted Melissa, eagerly.  “If you want anything, only make signs.  I shall understand you without words, and the quieter it is here the better.”

“No, no; you must speak,” begged the invalid.  “When the others talk, they make the beating in my head ten times worse, and excite me; but I like to hear your voice.”

“The beating?” interrupted Melissa, in whom this word awoke old memories.  “Perhaps you feel as if a hammer was hitting you over the left eye?

“If you move rapidly, does it not pierce your skull, and do you not feel as sick as if you were on the rocking sea?”

“Then you also know this torment?” asked Caracalla, surprised; but she answered, quietly, that her mother had suffered several times from similar headaches, and had described them to her.

Caesar sank back again on the pillows, moved his dry lips, and glanced toward the drink which Galen had prescribed for him; and Melissa, who almost as a child had long nursed a dear invalid, guessed what he wanted, brought him the goblet, and gave him a draught.

Caracalla rewarded her with a grateful look.  But the physic only seemed to increase the pain.  He lay there panting and motionless, until, trying to find a new position, he groaned, lightly: 

“It is as if iron was being hammered here.  One would think others might hear it.”

At the same time he seized the girl’s hand and placed it on his burning brow.

Melissa felt the pulse in the sufferer’s temple throbbing hard and short against her fingers, as she had her mother’s when she laid her cool hand on her aching forehead; and then, moved by the wish to comfort and heal, she let her right hand rest over the sick man’s eyes.  As soon as she felt one hand was hot, she put the other in its place; and it must have relieved the patient, for his moans ceased by degrees, and he finally said, gratefully: 

“What good that does me!  You are—­I knew you would help me.  It is already quite quiet in my brain.  Once more your hand, dear girl!”