raking the sand smooth, and hanging flowers about a dais, which was no
doubt intended for Caesar. Was it to be her fate to see the dreadful man
from the place where she was hiding from him? Her heart began to beat
faster, and at the same time questions crowded on her excited brain, each
bringing with it fresh anxiety for those she loved, of whom, till now,
she had been thinking with calm reassurance.

Whither had Alexander fled?

Had her father and Philip succeeded in concealing themselves in the
sculptor's work-room?

Could Diodoros have escaped in time to reach the harbor with Polybius and
Praxilla?

How had Argutis contrived that her letter should reach Caesar's hands
without too greatly imperiling himself?

She was quite unconscious of any guilt toward Caracalla. There had been,
indeed, a strong and strange attraction which had drawn her to him; even
now she was glad to have been of service to him, and to have helped him
to endure the sufferings laid upon him by a cruel fate. But she could
never be his. Her heart belonged to another, and this she had confessed
in a letter--perhaps, indeed, too late. If he had a heart really capable
of love, and had set it on her, he would no doubt think it hard that he
should have bestowed his affections on a girl who was already plighted to
another, even when she first appeared before him as a suppliant, though
deeply moved by pity; still, he had certainly no right to condemn her
conduct. And this was her firm conviction.