And then--she felt as if he must have guessed her thoughts--while he
patted the lion and gently pushed him aside he turned his face full on
her, and she knew not whether to be pleased or angry, for the odious,
squinting eyes were not now terrible or contemptuous; nay, they had
looked kindly on the beast, and with a somewhat suffering expression.
The dreadful face of the murderer was not hideous now, but engaging--
the face of a youth enduring torments of soul or of body.

She was not mistaken. On the very next step Caracalla stood still,
pressed his right hand to his temples, and set his lips as if to control
some acute pain. Then he sadly shook his head and gazed up at the walls
of the court, which had been decorated in his honor with hangings and
garlands of flowers. First he studied the frieze and the festal display
on his right, and when he turned his head to look at the side where
Melissa stood, an inward voice bade her withdraw, that the gaze of this
monster might not blight her. But an irresistible attraction held her
fast; then suddenly she felt as if the ground were sinking from under her
feet, and, as a shipwrecked wretch snatches at a floating spar, she clung
to the little column at the left of the window, clutching it with her
hand; for the dreadful thing had happened-Caracalla's eye had met hers
and had even rested on her for a while! And that gaze had nothing
bloodthirsty in it, nor the vile leer which had sparkled in the eyes of
the drunken rioters she had met last night in the streets; he only looked
astonished as at some wonderful thing which he had not expected to see in
this place. But presently a fresh attack of pain apparently made him
turn away, for his features betrayed acute suffering, as he slowly set
his foot on the next step below.

Again, and more closely, he pressed his hand to his brow, and then
beckoned to a tall, well-built man with flowing hair, who walked behind