us to one another, like what binds a man to his wife?-There lies the gem.
Look at it once again--No, child, no! This resemblance is not mere
accident. The short-sighted, might call it superstition or a vain
illusion; I know better. At least a portion of Alexander's soul lives in
this breast. A hundred signs--I will tell you about it later--make it a
certainty to me. And yesterday morning. . . . I see it all again
before me. . . . You stood above me, on the left, at a window. . .
I looked up; . . our eyes met, and I felt in the depths of my heart a
strange emotion. . . . I asked myself, silently, where I had seen
that lovely face before. And the answer rang, you have already often met
her; you know her!"

"My face reminded you of the gem," interrupted Melissa, disquieted.

"No, no," continued Caesar. "It was some thing else. Why had none of my
many gems ever reminded me before of living people? Why did your
picture, I know not how often, recur to my mind? And you? Only
recollect what you have done for me. How marvelously we were brought
together! And all this in the course of a single, short day. And you
also. . . . I ask you, by all that is holy to you. . . Did you,
after you saw me in the court of sacrifice, not think of me so often and
so vividly that it astonished you?"

"You are Caesar," answered Melissa, with increasing anxiety.

"So you thought of my purple robes?" asked Caracalla, and his face
clouded over; "or perhaps only of my power that might be fatal to your
family? I will know. Speak the truth, girl, by the head of your
father!"