arms round the aged lady, and, to her great surprise, after kissing her
warmly on brow and mouth and eyes, cried in tones of tender entreaty:

"Forgive me. I did not want to listen, and yet I could not choose but
hear. No word of your discourse escaped me. I know now that I must not
fly, and that I must bear whatever fate the gods may send me. I used
often to say to myself, 'Of how little importance is my life or my
happiness!' And now that I must give up my lover, come what may I care
not what the future has in store for me. I can never forget Diodoros;
and, when I think that everything is at an end between us, it is as if my
heart were torn in pieces. But I have found out, in these last days,
what heavy troubles one may bear without breaking down. If my flight is
to bring danger, if not death and ruin, upon so many good people, I had
better stay. The man who lusts after me--it is true, when I think of his
embrace my blood runs cold! But perhaps I shall be able to endure even
that. And then--if I crush my heart into silence, and renounce Diodoros
forever, and give myself up to Caesar--as I must--tell me you will not
then close your doors against me, but that I may stay with you till the
horrid hour comes when Caracalla calls me?"

The matron had listened with deep emotion to Melissa's victory over her
desires and her aversions. This heathen maiden, brought up in the right
way by a good mother, and to whom life had taught many a hard lesson, was
she not already treading in the footsteps of the Saviour? This child was
offering up the great and pure love of her heart to preserve others from
sorrow and danger; and what a different course of action was she herself
to pursue in obedience to her husband's orders--her husband, whose duty
it was to offer a shining example to the whole heathen world!

She thought of Abraham's sacrifice, and wondered if the Lord might not