"Jest?" said Taurus Antinor, with a laugh that rang unnatural and
hoarse. "Jest! when for a day and a night my soul hath been on the rack
and mocking demons have jeered at my torments? Jest! When----?"

He broke off abruptly and looked down with an earnest gaze on the
upturned face of his friend.

"If thou wouldst tell me more it would ease thy heart," said the man
simply.

For a moment or two the praefect was silent. His hand rested on his
friend's shoulder, and his eyes, with their deep furrow between the
brows, were fixed on the kind face that invited confidence.

"For seven years," he said abruptly, but speaking very slowly, "whilst I
served the Caesar, every one of my waking thoughts and many of my dreams
tended to that day in Jerusalem and the three hours' agony which I had
witnessed on Golgotha. Yesterday did a woman cross my path--and now I
have thoughts only of her."

"Who is this woman?" asked the other.

"She is of the House of Caesar, pure and chaste as the lilies in my
garden at Ostia, proud and unapproachable as the stars ... her heart is
a closed book wherein man hath never read ... but since her eyes have
mocked me with their smile, my heart is enchained to her service and I
see naught but her loveliness."

"Look upwards, man; a glowing Cross will blind thine eyes to all save to
itself."

"Have I not looked," said the praefect, with a sharp, quick sigh, "until
mine eyes have ached with trying to see that which once was so clear.
But now, between me and that sacred memory that methought had been
branded into my very soul, there always rises the vision of a girl, tall
and slender as the lilies, clad all in white as they. She stands between
me and memory, and mine eyes grow weary and dim trying to see beyond
that vision, recalling to my mind the picture of that Cross, the
thorn-crowned head, the pierced hands and feet. She stands between me
and memory, and with laughing eyes defies me not to see her, and I look
and look, and the vision of the Cross grows more faint, and she stands
there serene and white and silent, with blue eyes smiling on my
treachery and scornful voice upraised, denying God and Christ. She is of
the House of Caesar and she is ignorant, and she laughs at my belief and
scorns all thought of God, and I do find it in my treacherous heart to
pity her and pitying her to kneel at her feet. And all the while a
thousand demons shout mockingly unto mine ear: 'Thou art a traitor--a
trai