she took from it. Her heart was moved; and when, in the crowd which her
lively imagination had conjured up before her, she caught sight of the
wife of the blacksmith Herophilus, who had been thrown into prison
through an accusation from Zminis, she turned to Caracalla whom she still
imagined seated beside her, and cried, "Pardon!" and Caracalla nodded a
gracious consent, and the next moment Herophilus's wife lay on her
liberated husband's breast, while the broken fetters still clanked upon
his wrists. Their children were there, too, and stretched up their arms
to their parents, offering their happy lips first to them and then to
Melissa.

How beautiful it all was, and how it cheered her compassionate heart!

And this, said the newly awakened, meditative spirit within her, need be
no dream; no, it lay in her power to impart this happiness to herself and
many others, day by day, until the end.

Then she felt that she must arise and cry to her friend, "I will follow
your counsel and remain! "But her imagination had already begun to work
again, and showed her the widow of Titianus, as she entreated Caesar to
spare her noble, innocent husband, while he mercilessly repulsed her.
And it flashed through her mind that her petitions might share the same
fate, when at that moment the emperor's threatening voice sounded from
the adjoining room.

How hateful its strident tones were to her ear! She dropped her eyes and
caught sight of a dark stain on the snow-white plumage of the doves in
the mosaic pavement at her feet.

That was a last trace of the blood of the young tribune, which the