e and the downfall. Once more
his life was left in him. Where men perished by the hundred thousand he
escaped, winning safety, not through the desire of it, but because of
the love of Miriam which drove him on to follow her. Happily for himself
he had hidden money, which, after the gift of his race, he was able to
turn to good account, so that now he, who had been a leader in war
and council, walked the world as a merchant in Eastern goods. All that
glittering past had gone from him; he might become wealthy, but, Jew as
he was, he could never be great nor fill his soul with the glory that
it craved. There remained to him, then, nothing but this passion for
one woman among the millions who dwelt beneath the sun, the girl who had
been his playmate, whom he loved from the beginning, although she had
never loved him, and whom he would love until the end.

Why had she not loved him? Because of his rival, that accursed Roman,
Marcus, the man whom time upon time he had tried to kill, but who had
always slipped like water from his hands. Well, if she was lost to him
she was lost to Marcus also, and from that thought he would take such
comfort as he might. Indeed he had no other, for during those dreadful
hours the fires of all Gehenna raged in his soul. He had lost--but who
had found her?

Throughout the long night Caleb tramped round the cold, empty-looking
palace, suffering perhaps as he had never suffered before, a thing to
be pitied of gods and men. At length the dawn broke and the light crept
down the splendid street, showing here and there groups of weary and
half-drunken revellers staggering homewards from the feast, flushed
men and dishevelled women. Others appeared also, humble and industrious
citizens going to their daily toil. Among them were people whose
business it was to clean the roads, abroad early this morning, for after
the great procession they thought that they might find articles of value
let fall by those who walked in it, or by the spectators. Two of
these scavengers began sweeping near the place where Caleb stood, and
lightened their toil by laughing at him, asking him if he had spent his
night in the gutter and whether he knew his way home. He replied that he
waited for the doors of the house to be opened.

"Which house?" they asked. "The 'Fortunate House?'" and they pointed to
the marble palace of Marcus, which, as Caleb now saw for the first time,
had these words blazoned in gold letters on its port