were sinking from under her
feet, and, as a shipwrecked wretch snatches at a floating spar, she clung
to the little column at the left of the window, clutching it with her
hand; for the dreadful thing had happened-Caracalla's eye had met hers
and had even rested on her for a while! And that gaze had nothing
bloodthirsty in it, nor the vile leer which had sparkled in the eyes of
the drunken rioters she had met last night in the streets; he only looked
astonished as at some wonderful thing which he had not expected to see in
this place. But presently a fresh attack of pain apparently made him turn
away, for his features betrayed acute suffering, as he slowly set his
foot on the next step below.

Again, and more closely, he pressed his hand to his brow, and then
beckoned to a tall, well-built man with flowing hair, who walked behind
him, and accepted the support of his offered arm.

"Theocritus, formerly an actor and dancer," the priest whispered to
Melissa. "Caesar's whim made the mimic a senator, a legate, and a
favorite."

But Melissa only knew that he was speaking, and did not take in the
purport of his speech; for this man, slowly descending the steps,
absorbed her whole sympathy. She knew well the look of those who suffer
and conceal it from the eyes of the world; and some cruel disease was
certainly consuming this youth, who ruled the earth, but whose purple
robes would be snatched at soon enough by greedy hands if he should cease
to seem strong and able. And now, again, he looked old and worn--poor
wretch, who yet was so young and born to be so abundantly happy! He was,
to be sure, a base and blood-stained tyrant, but not the less a miserable
and unhappy man. The more severe the pain he had to endure, the harder
must he find it to hide it from the crowd who were constantly about him.
There is but one antidote to hatred, and that is pity; it was with the
eager compassion of a woman's heart that Melissa marked every movement of
the imperial murderer, as soon as she recognized his sufferings, and when
their eyes had met. Nothing now escaped her keen glance which could add
to her sympathy for the man she had loathed but a minute before. She
noticed a slight limp in his gait and a convulsive twitching of his
eyelids; his slender, almost transparent hand, she reflected, was that of
a sick man, and pain and fever, no doubt, had thinned his hair, which had
left many places bald.

And when the high--priest of Serapis an