When it was time to depart, she joined the hands of the betrothed pair, and called down a blessing from the gods.

Diodoros accepted this gratefully.

He only knew that this majestic lady had made Melissa’s acquaintance through Alexander, and had won her affection, and he encouraged the impression that this woman, whose Juno-like beauty haunted him, had visited him on his bed of sickness in the place of his long-lost mother.

Outside the sick-room Andreas again met Melissa, and, after she had told him of her visit to the emperor, he impressed on her eagerly on no account to obey the tyrant’s call again.  Then he had promised to hide her securely, either on Zeno’s estate or else in the house of another friend, which was difficult of access.  When Dame Berenike had again, and with particular eagerness, suggested her ship, Andreas had exclaimed: 

“In the garden, on the ship, under the earth—­only not back to Caesar!”

The last question of the freedman’s, as to whether she had meditated further on his discourse, had reminded her of the sentence, “The fullness of the time is come”; and afterward the thought occurred to her, again and again, that in the course of the next few hours some decisive event would happen to her, “fulfilling the time,” as Andreas expressed it.

When, therefore, somewhat later, she was alone with the chief priest’s wife, who had concluded her comforting, pious exhortations, Melissa asked the lady Euryale whether she had ever heard the sentence, “When the fullness of the time is come.”

At this the lady cried, gazing at the girl with surprised inquiry: 

“Are you, then, after all, connected with the Christians?”

“Certainly not,” answered the young girl, firmly.  “I heard it accidentally, and Andreas, Polybius’s freedman, explained it to me.”

“A good interpreter,” replied the elder lady.  “I am only an ignorant woman; yet, child, even I have experienced that a day, an hour, comes to every man in the course of his life in which he afterward sees that the time was fulfilled.  As the drops become mingled with the stream, so at that moment the things we have done and thought unite to carry us on a new current, either to salvation or perdition.  Any moment may bring the crisis; for that reason the Christians are right when they call on one another to watch.  You also must keep your eyes open.  When the time—­who knows how soon?—­is fulfilled for you, it will determine the good or evil of your whole life.”

“An inward voice tells me that also,” answered Melissa, pressing her hands on her panting bosom.  “Just feel how my heart beats!”

Euryale, smiling, complied with this wish, and as she did so she shuddered.  How pure and lovable was this young creature; and Melissa looked to her like a lamb that stood ready to hasten trustfully to meet the wolf!

At last she led her guest into the room where supper was prepared.