But the Christian broke in:  “My life has moved in other paths than yours, and what has happened to me, the freedwoman and the Christian, can have no interest for you.  But the saying which has stirred your soul refers to the coming of One who is all in all to us Christians.  Did Andrew tell you nothing of His life?”

“Only a little,” answered the girl, “but I would gladly hear more of Him.”

Then the Christian seated herself at Melissa’s side, and, clasping the maiden’s hand in hers, told her of the birth of the Saviour, of His loving heart, and His willing death as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  The girl listened with attentive ear.  With no word did she interrupt the narrative, and the image of the Crucified One rose before her mind’s eye, pure and noble, and worthy of all love.  A thousand questions rose to her lips, but, before she could ask one, the Christian was called away to attend the lady Berenike, and Melissa was again alone.

What she had already heard of the teaching of the Christians occurred to her once more, and above all that first saying from the sacred Scriptures which had attracted her attention, and about which she had just asked Johanna.  Perhaps for her, too, the time was already fulfilled, when she had taken courage to defy the emperor’s commands.

She rejoiced at this action, for she felt that the strength would never fail her now to set her will against his.  She felt as though she bore a charm against his power since she had parted from her lover, and since the murder of the governor had opened her eyes to the true character of him on whom she had all too willingly expended her pity.  And yet she shuddered at the thought of meeting the emperor again, and of having to show him that she felt safe with him because she trusted to his generosity.

Lost in deep thought, she waited for the return of the lady and the Christian waiting-woman, but in vain.  At last her eye fell upon the scrolls which the lady Berenike had pointed out to her.  They lay in beautiful alabaster caskets on an ebony stand.  If they had only been the writings of the Christians, telling of the life and death of their Saviour!  But how should writings such as those come here?  The casket only held the works of Philostratus, and she took from it the roll containing the story of the hero of whom he had himself spoken to her.  Full of curiosity, she smoothed out the papyrus with the ivory stick, and her attention was soon engaged by the lively conversation between the vintner and his Phoenician guest.  She passed rapidly over the beginning, but soon reached the part of which Philostratus had told her.  Under the form of Achilles he had striven to represent Caracalla as he appeared to the author’s indulgent imagination.  But it was no true portrait; it described the original at most as his mother would have wished him to be.  There it was written that the vehemence flashing from the hero’s bright eyes, even when peacefully inclined, showed how easily his wrath could break forth.  But to those who loved him he was even more endearing during these outbursts than before.  The Athenians felt toward him as they did toward a lion; for, if the king of beasts pleased them when he was at rest, he charmed them infinitely more when, foaming with bloodthirsty rage, he fell upon a bull, a wild boar, or some such ferocious animal.