onishment the woman gazed back at him.

"Thou art Laodice, daughter of Costobarus?" he asked, to gain time.

She inclined her head.

"When--when dost thou expect Philadelphus?" he asked next.

"Why do you ask?" she parried.

"I--I have a message for him," he essayed finally. "Is he here?"

"Tell me, who art thou?" the woman asked pointedly.

A vision of the girl, flushed and trembling with pleasure at sight of
him, flashed with poignant effect upon him at that moment. The warmth
and softness of her hands under the pressure of his happy lips was
still with him. It would be infidelity to his own feelings to renounce
her then. It was becoming a physical impossibility for him to accept
this other woman.

He hesitated and reddened. An old subterfuge occurred to him at a
desperate minute.

"I--I am Hesper--of Ephesus," he essayed.

"What is thy business with Philadelphus?" the woman persisted.

Again the Maccabee floundered. It had been easy to invent a story to
keep the woman he loved from discovering that he was a married man,
but the point in question was different. Now, filled with dismay and
indignation, apprehension and reluctance, his fertile mind failed him
at the moment of its greatest need.

And the eyes of the Greek, filling with suspicion and intense
interest, rested upon him.

"I asked," the actress repeated calmly, "thy business with
Philadelphus."

At that instant a tremendous shock shook the house to its foundations;
the hanging lamps lurched; the exedra jarred and in an instant several
of the servants appeared at various openings into passages. Before any
of the group could stir, a second thunderous shock sent a tremor over
the room, and a fragment of marble detached from a support overhead
and dropped to the pavement.

"It is an attack!" Amaryllis cried.

"On this house?" Salome demanded.

There was a clatter of arms and several men in Jewish armor rushed
through the chamber from the passage that led in from the Temple.

"I shall see," said the Maccabee, and followed the men at once.

Without he saw the night sky overhead crossed by dark stones flying
over the wall to the east. Warfare had begun.

But the attack was simply preliminary and desultory. It ceased while
he waited. Presently it began farther toward the north. The catapult
had been moved. The Maccabee hesitated in the colonnade.

The beautiful girl in the house of Amaryllis was in no further danger.
The interruption had s