The truth, villain,
and the whole truth, if you love your life!"

The half-choked man, ever prone to talking, had no reason for concealing
from Caesar what he had seen with his own eyes, and had subsequently
heard in the Serapeum and at the table of Polybius.

When life was at stake a promise to a freedman could be of no account,
so he gave free rein to his tongue, and answered the questions Caracalla
hoarsely put to him without reserve, and--being a man used to the ways
of a court--with insinuations that were doubly welcome to a judge so
eager for damning evidence.

Yesterday, the day before, and the day before that--every day on which
Melissa had pretended to feel the mysterious ties that bound her heart
to his, every day that she had feigned love and led him on to woo her,
she had--as he now learned--granted to another what she had refused to
him with such stern discretion. Her prayer for him, the sympathy
she said she felt, the maidenly sensibility which had charmed him in
her--all, all had been lies, deceit, sham, in order to attain an
object. And that old man and the brothers to serve whom she had dared to
approach him--they all knew the cruel game she was playing with him and
his heart's love. The lips that had lured him into the vilest trap
with lying words had kissed another. He seemed to hear the Alexandrians
laughing at the forsaken bridegroom, to see them pointing the finger
of derision at the man whom cunning woman had deceived even before
marriage. What a feast for their ribald wit!

And yet--he would have willingly borne it all, and more, for the
certainty that she had really loved him once; that her heart had been
his, if only for one short hour.

On those shreds of papyrus scattered over the floor she confessed she
was not able to accede to his wishes, because she had already given her
faith to another before she ever saw Caracalla. It was true she had felt
herself drawn to him as to no other but her betrothed; and had he been
content to let her be near him as a faithful servant and sicknurse, then
indeed... In short, he was informed in so many words that every tie
that bound her to him must be broken in favor of another, and the
hypocritical regret with which she sought to cover up the hard facts
only made him doubly indignant.

Lies, lies--even in this letter nothing but lies and heartless
dissimulation!

How it stabbed his heart! But he possessed the power to wound her in
return. Wild beast