No word of this conversation had escaped Melissa.  She learned nothing new from it, but it affected her deeply.

Warm-hearted as she was, she fully realized the debt of gratitude she owed to the lady Euryale; and she could not blame the high-priest, whom prudence certainly compelled to close his doors against her.  And yet she was wounded by his words.  She had struggled so hard in these last days to banish all thought of her own happiness, and shield her dear ones from harm, that such selfishness appeared doubly cruel to her.  Did it not seem as if this priest of the great Deity to whom she had been taught to pray, cared little what became of his nearest relatives, so long as he and his wife were unmolested?  That was the opposite of what Andreas had praised as the highest duty, the last time she had walked with him to the ferry; and since then Johanna had told her the story of Christ’s sufferings, and she understood the fervor with which the freedman had spoken of the crucified Son of God—­the great example of all unselfishness.

In the enthusiasm of her warm young heart she felt that what she had heard of the Christians’ teacher was beautiful, and that she too would not find it hard to die for those she loved.

With drooping head Euryale re-entered the room, and gazed with kind, anxious eyes into the girl’s face, as if asking her forgiveness.  Following the impulse of her candid heart, Melissa threw her fair young arms round the aged lady, and, to her great surprise, after kissing her warmly on brow and mouth and eyes, cried in tones of tender entreaty: 

“Forgive me.  I did not want to listen, and yet I could not choose but hear.  No word of your discourse escaped me.  I know now that I must not fly, and that I must bear whatever fate the gods may send me.  I used often to say to myself, ’Of how little importance is my life or my happiness!’ And now that I must give up my lover, come what may I care not what the future has in store for me.  I can never forget Diodoros; and, when I think that everything is at an end between us, it is as if my heart were torn in pieces.  But I have found out, in these last days, what heavy troubles one may bear without breaking down.  If my flight is to bring danger, if not death and ruin, upon so many good people, I had better stay.  The man who lusts after me—­it is true, when I think of his embrace my blood runs cold!  But perhaps I shall be able to endure even that.  And then—­if I crush my heart into silence, and renounce Diodoros forever, and give myself up to Caesar—­as I must—­tell me you will not then close your doors against me, but that I may stay with you till the horrid hour comes when Caracalla calls me?”

The matron had listened with deep emotion to Melissa’s victory over her desires and her aversions.  This heathen maiden, brought up in the right way by a good mother, and to whom life had taught many a hard lesson, was she not already treading in the footsteps of the Saviour?  This child was offering up the great and pure love of her heart to preserve others from sorrow and danger; and what a different course of action was she herself to pursue in obedience to her husband’s orders—­her husband, whose duty it was to offer a shining example to the whole heathen world!