ve been taken prisoner by the enemy and escaped are
held to be cowards among the Romans," he answered bitterly, "and it may
be that such a lot awaits me."

"Coward! You a coward, Marcus?"

"Aye. When it is known that I live, that is what my enemies will call me
who lived on for your sake, Miriam--for the sake of a woman who denies
me."

"Oh!" she said, "this is bitter. Now I remember and understand what
Gallus meant."

"Then will you still deny me? Must I suffer thus in vain? Think, had it
not been for you I could have stayed afar until the thing was forgotten,
that is, if I still chose to live; but now, because of you, things are
thus, and yet, Miriam--you deny me," and he put his arms about her and
drew her to his breast.

She did not struggle, she had no strength, only she wrung her hands and
sobbed, saying:

"What shall I do? Woe is me, what shall I do?"

"Do?" said the voice of Nehushta, speaking clear as a clarion from the
shadows. "Do your duty, girl, and leave the rest to Heaven."

"Silence, accursed woman!" gasped Marcus, turning pale with anger.

"Nay," she answered, "I will not be silent. Listen, Roman; I like you
well, as you have reason to know, seeing that it was I who nursed you
back to life, when for one hour's want of care you must have died. I
like you well, and above everything on earth I wish that ere my eyes
shut for the last time they may see your hand in her hand, and her hand
in your hand, man and wife before the face of all men. Yet I tell you
that now indeed you are a coward in a deeper fashion than that the
Romans dream of; you are a coward who try to work upon the weakness of
this poor girl's loving heart, who try in the hour of her sore distress
to draw her from the spirit, if not from the letter, of her duty. So
great a coward are you that you remind her even that she is your slave
and threaten to deal with her as you heathen deal with slaves. You put a
gloss upon the truth; you try to filch the fruit you may not pluck; you
say 'you may not marry me, but you are my property, and therefore if you
give way to your master it is no sin.' I tell you it is a sin, doubly
a sin, since you would bind the weight of it on her back as well as on
your own, and a sin that in this way or in that would bring its reward
to both of you."

"Have you finished?" asked Marcus coldly, but suffering Miriam to slip
from his arms back upon the couch.

"No, I have not finished; I spoke of the fruits of