pure as the blood of a lamb! I see--Ah, child! you do not know death
and its terrible reality."

"I know it!" Melissa broke in with feverish excitement. "My dearest--my
mother--I saw her die with these eyes. What did I not bury in her grave!
And yet hope still lived in my heart; and though Caracalla may be a
reckless murderer, he will do nothing to me, precisely because I am so
feeble. And, lady, what am I? Of what account is my life if I lose my
father, and my brothers, who are both on the high-road to greatness?"

"But you are betrothed," Berenike eagerly put in. "And your lover, you
told me, is dear to you. What of him? He no doubt loves you, and, if
you come to harm, sorrow will mar his young life."

At this Melissa clasped her hands over her face and sobbed aloud. "Show
me, then, any other way--any! I will face the worst. But there is none;
and if Diodoros were here he would not stop me; for what my heart prompts
me to do is right, is my duty. But he is lying sick and with a clouded
mind, and I can not ask him. O noble lady, kindness looks out of your
eyes; cease to rub salt into my wounds! The task before me is hard
enough already. But I would do it, and try to get speech with that
terrible man, even if I had no one to protect me."

The lady had listened with varying feelings to this outpouring of the
young girl's heart. Every instinct rebelled against the thought of
sacrificing this pure, sweet creature to the fury of the tyrant whose
wickedness was as unlimited as his power, and yet she saw no other chance
of saving the artist, whom she held in affectionate regard. Her own
noble heart understood the girl's resolve to purchase the life of those
she loved, even with her blood; she, in the same place, would have done