all my heart. But if you really care for me, if you desire my presence,
why let me suffer the worst?" Here a sudden flood of tears choked her
utterance. A smile of triumph passed over Caesar's features, and drawing
Melissa's hands away from her tearful face, he said, kindly:

"Alexander's soul pines for Roxana's; that is what makes your presence so
dear to me. Never shall you have cause to rue coming at my call. I
swear it by the manes of my divine father--you, Philostratus, are
witness."

The philosopher, who thought he knew Caracalla, gave a sigh of relief;
and Alexander gladly reflected that the danger he had feared for his
sister was averted. This craze about Roxana, of which Caracalla had just
now spoken to him as a certain fact, he regarded as a monstrous illusion
of this strange man's, which would, however, be a better safeguard for
Melissa than pledges and oaths.

He clasped her hand, and said with cheerful confidence: "Only send for
her when you are ill, my lord, as long as you remain here. I know from
your own lips that there is no passion which can betray Caesar into
perjury. Will you permit her to come with me for the present?"

"No," said Caracalla, sharply, and he bade him go about the business he
had in hand. Then, turning to Philostratus, he begged him to conduct
Melissa to Euryale, the high-priest's noble wife, for she had been a kind
and never-forgotten friend of his mother's.

The philosopher gladly escorted the young girl to the matron, who had
long been anxiously awaiting her return.