When life was at stake a promise to a freedman could be of no account,
so he gave free rein to his tongue, and answered the questions Caracalla
hoarsely put to him without reserve, and--being a man used to the ways of
a court--with insinuations that were doubly welcome to a judge so eager
for damning evidence.

Yesterday, the day before, and the day before that--every day on which
Melissa had pretended to feel the mysterious ties that bound her heart to
his, every day that she had feigned love and led him on to woo her, she
had--as he now learned--granted to another what she had refused to him
with such stern discretion. Her prayer for him, the sympathy she said
she felt, the maidenly sensibility which had charmed him in her--all, all
had been lies, deceit, sham, in order to attain an object. And that old
man and the brothers to serve whom she had dared to approach him--they
all knew the cruel game she was playing with him and his heart's
love. The lips that had lured him into the vilest trap with lying words
had kissed another. He seemed to hear the Alexandrians laughing at the
forsaken bridegroom, to see them pointing the finger of derision at the
man whom cunning woman had deceived even before marriage. What a feast
for their ribald wit!

And yet--he would have willingly borne it all, and more, for the
certainty that she had really loved him once; that her heart had been
his, if only for one short hour.

On those shreds of papyrus scattered over the floor she confessed she was
not able to accede to his wishes, because she had already given her faith
to another before she ever saw Caracalla. It was true she had felt
herself drawn to him as to no other but her betrothed; and had he been
content to let her be near him as a faithful servant and sicknurse, then