She had never played the eavesdropper, but she had neither the presence of mind to withdraw, nor could she avoid hearing that her own name was mentioned.

It was the lady who spoke, and her husband answered in excited tones: 

“As to your Christianity, and whatever there may be in it that is offensive to me as high-priest of a heathen god, we will speak of that later.  It is not a question now of a difference of opinion, but of a serious danger, which you with your easily-moved heart will bring down upon yourself and me.  The gem-cutter’s daughter is a lovely creature—­I will not deny it—­and worthy of your sympathy; besides which, you, as a woman, can not bear to see her most sacred feelings wounded.”

“And would you let your hands he idle in your lap,” interposed his wife, “if you saw a lovable, innocent child on the edge of a precipice, and felt yourself strong enough to save her from falling?  You can not have asked yourself what would be the fate of a girl like Melissa if she were Caracalla’s wife.”

“Indeed I have,” Timotheus assured her gravely, “and nothing would please me better than that the maiden should succeed in escaping that fate.  But—­the time is short, and I must be brief—­the emperor is our guest, and honors me with boundless confidence.  Just now he disclosed to me his determination to make Melissa his wife, and I was forced to approve it.  Thus he looks to me to carry out his wishes; and if the maiden escapes, and there falls on you, or, through you, on me, the shadow of a suspicion of having assisted in her flight, he will have every right to regard me as a traitor and to treat me as such.  To others my life is made sacred by my high office, but the man to whom a human life—­no matter whose—­is no more than that of a sacrificial animal is to you or me, that man would shed the blood of us both without a quiver of the eyelid.”

“Then let him!” cried Euryale, hotly.  “My bereaved and worn-out life is but a small price to pay for that of an innocent, blameless creature, glowing with youth and all the happiness of requited love, and with a right to the highest joys that life can offer.”

“And I?” exclaimed Timotheus, angrily.  “What am I to you since the death of our child?  For the sake of the first person that came to you as a poor substitute for our lost daughter, you are ready to go to your death, and to drag me with you into the gloom of Hades.  There speaks the Christian!  Even that gentle philosopher on the throne, Marcus Aurelius, was disgusted at your fellow-believers’ hideous mania for death.  The Christian expects in the next world all that is denied to him in this.  But we think of this life, in which the Deity has placed us.  To me life is the highest blessing, and yours is dearer to me than my own.  Therefore I say, firmly and decidedly:  Melissa must not make her escape from this house.  If she is determined to fly this night, let her do so—­I shall not hinder her.  If your counsel is of service to her, I am glad; but she must not enter this house again after the performance in the Circus, unless she be firmly resolved to become Caesar’s wife.  If she can not bring herself to this, the apartments which belong to us must be closed against her, as against a dangerous foe.”