If her refusal roused his ire--if her father's prophecy and
Philostratus's fears must be verified, that his rage would involve many
others besides herself in ruin, then--But here her thought broke off with
a shudder.

Then she recalled the hour when she had been ready and willing to be his,
to sacrifice love and happiness only to soften his wild mood and protect
others from his unbridled rage. Yes, she might have been his wife by
this time, if he himself had not proved to her that she could never gain
such power over him as would control his sudden fits of fury, or obtain
mercy for any victim of his cruelty. The murder of Vindex and his nephew
had been the death-blow of this hope. She best knew how seriously she
had come to the determination to give up every selfish claim to future
happiness in order that she might avert from others the horrors which
threatened them; and now, when she knew the history of the Divine Lord of
the Christians, she told herself that she had acted at that moment in a
manner well-pleasing to that sublime Teacher. Still, her strong common
sense assured her that to sacrifice the dearest and fondest wish of her
heart in vain would not have been right and good, but foolish.

The evil deeds which Caracalla was now preparing to commit he would have
done even if she were at his side. Of what small worth would she have
seemed to him, and to herself!--When this tyranny should be overpast,
when he should be gone to some other part of his immense empire, if those
she loved were spared she could be happy--ah! so happy with the man to
whom she had given her heart--as happy as she would have been miserable
if she had become the victim to unceasing terrors as Caesar's wife.

Euryale was right, and Fate, to which she had appealed, had decided well
for her. That, the greatest conceivable sacrifice, would have been in