ves me but Iambe."

"But I know of one who loves every one with a divine and equal love,"
interrupted Paulus.

"I do not care for such a one," answered Sirona. "Iambe follows no one
but me; what good can a love do me that I must share with all the
world! But you mean the crucified God of the Christians? He is good and
pitiful, so says Dame Dorothea; but he is dead--I cannot see him, nor
hear him, and, certainly, I cannot long for one who only shows me grace.
I want one to whom I can count for something, and to whose life and
happiness I am indispensable."

A scarcely perceptible shudder thrilled through the Alexandrian as she
spoke these words, and he thought, as he glanced at her face and figure
with a mingled expression of regret and admiration, "Satan, before he
fell, was the fairest among the pure spirits, and he still has power
over this woman. She is still far from being ripe for salvation, and yet
she has a gentle heart, and even if she has erred, she is not lost."

Sirona's eyes had met his, and she said with a sigh, "You look at me so
compassionately--if only Iambe were well, and if I succeeded in reaching
Alexandria, my destiny would perhaps take a turn for the better."

Paulus had risen while she spoke, and had taken the pot from the hearth;
he now offered it to his guest, saying:

"For the present we will trust to this broth to compensate to you for
the delights of the capital; I am glad that you relish it. But tell me
now, have you seriously considered what danger may threaten a beautiful,
young, and unprotected woman in the wicked city of the Greeks? Would it
not be better that you should submit to the consequences of your guilt,
and return to Phoebicius, to whom unfortunately you belong?"

Sirona, at these words, had set down the vessel out of which she was
eating, and rising in passionate haste, she exclaimed:

"That shall never, never be!--And when I was sitting up there half-dead,
and took your step for that of Phoebicius, the gods showed me a way to
escape from him, and from you or anyone who would drag me back to him.
When I fled to the edge of the abyss, I was raving and crazed, but what
I then would have done in my madness, I would do now in cold blood--as
surely as I hope to see my own people in Arelas once more! What was I
once, and to what have I come through Phoebicius! Life was to me a sunny
garden with golden trellises and shady trees and waters as bright as
crystal, with rosy flowers