and dear to her. While she gazed up into the face of Asklepios,
imploring him to be gracious to the imperial youth, and release him from
the pain but for which he might have been humane and beneficent, the
stony features seemed to live before her eyes, and the majesty and
dignity that beamed on the brow assured her that the god's power and
wisdom were great enough to heal every disease. The tender smile which
played on his features filled her soul with the certainty that he would
vouchsafe to be gracious; nay, she could believe that he moved those
marble lips and promised to grant her prayer. And when she turned to the
statue of Hygeia she fancied the beautiful, kind face nodded to her with
a pledge of fulfillment.

She raised her beseeching arms higher still, and addressed her sculptured
friends aloud, as though they could hear her:

"I know that nothing is hidden from you, eternal gods," she began, "and
when it was your will that my mother should be taken from me my foolish
heart rebelled. But I was then a child without understanding, and my
soul lay as it were asleep. Now it is different. You know that I have
learned to love a man; and many things, and, the certainty that the gods
are good, have come to me with that love. Forgive the maid the sins of
the child, and make my lover whole, as he lies under the protection and
in the sanctuary of the great Serapis, still needing your aid too. He is
mending, and the greatest of thy ministers, O Asklepios, says he will
recover, so it must be true. Yet without thee even the skill of Galenus
is of little avail; wherefore I beseech you both, Heal Diodoros, whom I
love!--But I would fain entreat you for another. You will wonder,
perhaps--for it is Bassianus Antoninus, whom they call Caracalla and
Caesar.