Now, at once, I am going into the desert, dressed like a traveller in a coat and hat, so that in the doubtful light of the moon I may easily be taken for you--going to give my weary heart as a prey to the assassins' knife." "You are mad!" cried Publius, and he flung himself with his whole weight on the door, and kicked it with all his strength.

"What you purpose is pure madness open the door, I command you! However strong the villains may be that Euergetes has bribed, I am man enough to defend myself." "You are unarmed, Publius, and they have cords and daggers." "Then open the door, and stay here with me till day dawns.

It is not noble, it is wicked to cast away your life.

Open the door at once, I entreat you, I command you!" At any other time the words would not have failed of their effect on Klea's reasonable nature, but the fearful storm of feeling which had broken over her during the last few hours had borne away in its whirl all her composure and self-command.

The one idea, the one resolution, the one desire, which wholly possessed her was to close the life that had been so full of self-sacrifice by the greatest sacrifice of all--that of life itself, and not only in order to secure Irene's happiness and to save the Roman, but because it pleased her--her father's daughter--to make a noble end; because she, the maiden, would fain show Publius what a woman might be capable of who loved him above all others; because, at this moment, death did not seem a misfortune; and her mind, overwrought by hours of terrific tension, could not free itself from the fixed idea that she would and must sacrifice herself.
She no longer thought these things--she was possessed by them; they had the mastery, and as a madman feels forced to repeat the same words again and again to himself, so no prayer, no argument at this moment would have prevailed to divert her from her purpose of giving up her young life for Publius and Irene.