the stadium was at first
fairly crowded; but the chariots, horsemen, and foot-passengers on whose
heads she looked down from her high window interested her as little as
the wide inclosure of the stadium, part of which lay within sight.

A race, no doubt, was to be held there this morning, for slaves were
raking the sand smooth, and hanging flowers about a dais, which was no
doubt intended for Caesar. Was it to be her fate to see the dreadful man
from the place where she was hiding from him? Her heart began to beat
faster, and at the same time questions crowded on her excited brain, each
bringing with it fresh anxiety for those she loved, of whom, till now,
she had been thinking with calm reassurance.

Whither had Alexander fled?

Had her father and Philip succeeded in concealing themselves in the
sculptor's work-room?

Could Diodoros have escaped in time to reach the harbor with Polybius and
Praxilla?

How had Argutis contrived that her letter should reach Caesar's hands
without too greatly imperiling himself?

She was quite unconscious of any guilt toward Caracalla. There had been,
indeed, a strong and strange attraction which had drawn her to him; even
now she was glad to have been of service to him, and to have helped him
to endure the sufferings laid upon him by a cruel fate. But she could
never be his. Her heart belonged to another, and this she had confessed
in a letter--perhaps, indeed, too late. If he had a heart really capable
of love, and had set it on her, he would no doubt think it hard that he
should have bestowed his affections on a girl who was already plighted to
another, even when she first appeared before him as a suppliant, though
deeply moved by pity; still, he had certainly no right to condemn her
conduct. And this was her firm conviction.

If her refusal roused his ire--if her father's prophecy and
Philostratus's fears must be verified, that his rage would involve many
others besides herself in ruin, then--But here her thought broke off with
a shudder.

Then she recalled the hour when she had been ready and willing to be his,
to sacrifice love and happiness only to soften his wild mood and protect
others from his unbridled rage. Yes, she might have been his wife by this
time, if he himself had not proved to her that she could never gain such
power over him as would control his sudden fits of fury, or obtain mercy
for any victim of his cruelty. The murder of Vindex and his nephew had
been