This time, however, she did not find her lover alone in the sick-room.  Two physicians were with him, and she grew pale as she recognized in one of them the emperor’s Roman body-physician.

But it was too late too escape detection; so she only hastened to her lover’s side, whispered warm words of love in his ear, and, while she gave him the rose, conjured him ever and always to have faith in her and in her love, whatever reports he might hear.

Diodoros was up and had fully recovered.  His face lighted up with joy as he saw her; but, when she repeated the old, disquieting request, he anxiously begged to know what she meant by it.  She assured him, however, that she had already delayed too long, and referred him to Andreas and the lady Euryale, who would relate to him what had befallen her and spoiled every happy hour she had.  Then, thinking herself unobserved by those present, she breathed a kiss upon his lips.  But he would not let her go, urging with passionate tenderness his rights as her betrothed, till she tore herself away from him and hurried from the room.

As she left, she heard a ringing laugh, followed by loud, sprightly talking.  It was not her lover’s voice, and endeavoring, while she waited for Andreas, to catch what was being said on the other side of the door, she distinctly heard the body-physician (for no other pronounced the Greek language in that curious, halting manner) exclaim, gayly:  “By Cerberus, young man, you are to be envied!  The beauty my sovereign lord is limping after flies unbidden into your arms!”

Then came loud laughter as before, but this time interrupted by Diodoros’s indignant question as to what this all meant.  At last Melissa heard Andreas’s deep voice promising the young man to tell him everything later on; and when the convalescent impatiently asked for an immediate explanation, the Christian exhorted him to be calm, and finally requested the physician to grant him a few moments’ conversation.

Then there was quiet for a time in the room, only broken by Diodoros’s angry questions and the pacifying exclamations of the freedman.  She felt as if she must return to her lover and tell him herself what she had been forced to do in these last days, but maidenly shyness restrained her, till at last Andreas came out.  The freedman’s honest face expressed the deepest solicitude, and his voice sounded rough and hasty as he exclaimed, “You must fly—­fly this day!” And my father and brother, and Diodoros?” she asked, anxiously.  But he answered, urgently: 

“Let them get away as they may.  There is no hole or corner obscure enough to keep you hidden.  Therefore take advantage of the ship that waits for you.  Follow Argutis at once to the lady Berenike.  I can not accompany you, for it lies with me to occupy for the next few hours the attention of the body-physician, from whom you have the most to fear.  He has consented to go with me to my garden across the water.