"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."

"And whither can she go?" asked Euryale, sadly and with tearful eyes,
for there was no gainsaying so definite an order from her lord and
master. "The moment she is missed, they will search her father's
house; and, if she takes advan