too the body of the assassin who had been slain, the priests returned to
the temple.

As soon as the two lovers were left alone again Klea seized the Roman's
hand, and said passionately: "You have spoken many tender words to me,
and I thank you for them; but I am wont always to be honest, and less
than any one could I deceive you. Whatever your love bestows upon me
will always be a free gift, since you owe me nothing at all and I owe you
infinitely much; for I know now that you have snatched my sister from the
clutches of the mightiest in the land while I, when I heard that Irene
had gone away with you, and that murder threatened your life, believed
implicitly that on the contrary you had lured the child away to become
your sweetheart, and then--then I hated you, and then--I must confess it\
--in my horrible distraction I wished you dead!"

"And you think that wish can offend me or hurt me?" said Publius. "No,
my child; it only proves to me that you love me as I could wish to be
loved. Such rage under such circumstances is but the dark shadow cast by
love, and is as inseparable from love as from any tangible body. Where
it is absent there is no such thing as real love present--only an airy
vision, a phantom, a mockery. Such an one as Klea does not love nor hate
by halves; but there are mysterious workings in your soul as in that of
every other woman. How did the wish that you could see me dead turn into
the fearful resolve to let yourself be killed in my stead?"

"I saw the murderers," answered Klea, "and I was overwhelmed with horror
of them and of their schemes, and of all that had to do with them; I
would not destroy Irene's happiness, and I loved you even more deeply
than I hated you; and then--but let us not speak of it."