But as he passed on, he felt the warm touch of her fingers
through the cloth on his arm. It seemed as if she had plucked
him by the heart.

He went out by the Western Gate, under the golden cherubim
that the Emperor Titus had stolen from the ruined Temple of
Jerusalem and fixed upon the arch of triumph. He turned to
the left, and climbed the hill to the road that led to the
Grove of Daphne.

In all the world there was no other highway as beautiful.
It wound for five miles along the foot of the mountains, among
gardens and villas, plantations of myrtles and mulberries,
with wide outlooks over the valley of Orontes and the distant,
shimmering sea.

The richest of all the dwellings was the House
of the Golden Pillars, the mansion of Demetrius. He had won
the favor of the apostate Emperor Julian, whose vain efforts
to restore the worship of the heathen gods, some twenty years
ago, had opened an easy way to wealth and power for all who
would mock and oppose Christianity. Demetrius was not a
sincere fanatic like his royal master; but he was bitter
enough in his professed scorn of the new religion, to make him
a favourite at the court where the old religion was in
fashion. He had reaped a rich reward of his policy, and a
strange sense of consistency made him more fiercely loyal to
it than if it had been a real faith. He was proud of being
called "the friend of Julian"; and when his son joined himself