heart began to beat
faster, and at the same time questions crowded on her excited brain,
each bringing with it fresh anxiety for those she loved, of whom, till
now, she had been thinking with calm reassurance.

Whither had Alexander fled?

Had her father and Philip succeeded in concealing themselves in the
sculptor's work-room?

Could Diodoros have escaped in time to reach the harbor with Polybius
and Praxilla?

How had Argutis contrived that her letter should reach Caesar's hands
without too greatly imperiling himself?

She was quite unconscious of any guilt toward Caracalla. There had been,
indeed, a strong and strange attraction which had drawn her to him; even
now she was glad to have been of service to him, and to have helped him
to endure the sufferings laid upon him by a cruel fate. But she could
never be his. Her heart belonged to another, and this she had confessed
in a letter--perhaps, indeed, too late. If he had a heart really capable
of love, and had set it on her, he would no doubt think it hard that he
should have bestowed his affections on a girl who was already plighted
to another, even when she first appeared before him as a suppliant,
though deeply moved by pity; still, he had certainly no right to condemn
her conduct. And this was her firm conviction.

If her refusal roused his ire--if her father's prophecy and
Philostratus's fears must be verified, that his rage would involve many
others besides herself in ruin, then--But here her thought broke off
with a shudder.

Then she recalled the hour when she had been ready and willing to be
his, to sacrifice love and happiness only to soften his wild mood and
protect others from his unbridled rage. Yes, she might have been his
wife by this time, if he himself had not proved to her that she could
never gain such power over him as would control his sudden fits of fury,
or obtain mercy for any victim of his cruelty. The murder of Vindex
and his nephew had been the death-blow of this hope. She best knew how
seriously she had come to the determination to give up every selfish
claim to future happiness in order that she might avert from others the
horrors which threatened them; and now, when she knew the history of the
Divine Lord of the Christians, she told herself that she had acted at
that moment in a manner well-pleasing to that sublime Teacher. Still,
her strong common sense assured her that to sacrifice the dearest and
fondest wish of her heart in