"Even then," she whispered when he paused, "you do not forget!"
"No! Why, these streets, that should ring for me with the footsteps of
all the great from the days of David, are marked by the passage of
that Prophet. I might forget that Felix and Florus and Gessius were
legates in that Roman residence, but I do not fail to remember that
they took that Prophet before Pilate there. By my soul, the street
that leads north hath become the way of the Cross, and there are three
crosses for me on the Hill of the Skull!"
She looked at him gravely and with alarm. What was it in this history
of the Nazarene which won aristocrats and shepherds alike? She would
see from this man if there were indeed any truth in the story that
Philadelphus had told her.
"I have heard," she began, faltering, "I have heard that--" She
stopped. Her tongue would not shape the story. But after a glance at
her, he understood.
"And thou hast heard it, also?" he whispered. "Thou believest it?"
It seemed that to acknowledge her fear that the King had come and gone
would establish the fact.
"No!" she cried.
"It is enough," he said nervously. "We do not well to talk of it. I
came for another reason. Tell me; hast thou other shelter than this
house?"
"No," she answered.
"Hast thou talked with this Philadelphus, here?" he asked after
silence.
She assented with averted face.
"Is he that one who was with me in the hills?" he persisted.
Again she assented, with surprise.
His hands clenched and for a moment he struggled with his rage.
"This house is no place for you!" he declared at last.
"What manner of house is this?" she asked pathetically. "It is so
strange!"
"Why did you come here?"
"Because there was nowhere else to go."
He was silent.
"Who is this Amaryllis?" she asked.
"John's mistress."
She shrank away from him and looked at him with horror-stricken eyes.
"Hast thou not yet seen him, who buys thy bread and meat and insures
this safe roof?" he persisted.
"And--and I eat bread--bought--bought by--" she stammered.
"Even so!"
Her hands dropped at her sides.
"Are the good all dead?" she said.
"In Jerusalem, yes; for Virtue gets hungry, at times."
She had risen and moved away from him, but he followed her with
interested eyes.
"Then--then--" she began, hesitating under a rush of convictions.
"That is why--why I can not--why he--he--"
He knew she spoke of Philadelphus.
"Go on," he said.
"Why I can not live in safety near him!"
He, too, arose. Until that moment it had not occurred to him that
Julian of Ephesus, as repugnant to her as she had shown him ever to
be, might prove a peril to her life as he had been to the Maccabee who
had stood in his way.