But if you really care for me, if you desire my presence, why let me suffer the worst ?" Here a sudden flood of tears choked her utterance.

A smile of triumph passed over Caesar's features, and drawing Melissa's hands away from her tearful face, he said, kindly: "Alexander's soul pines for Roxana's; that is what makes your presence so dear to me.

Never shall you have cause to rue coming at my call.
I swear it by the manes of my divine father--you, Philostratus, are witness." The philosopher, who thought he knew Caracalla, gave a sigh of relief; and Alexander gladly reflected that the danger he had feared for his sister was averted.

This craze about Roxana, of which Caracalla had just now spoken to him as a certain fact, he regarded as a monstrous illusion of this strange man's, which would, however, be a better safeguard for Melissa than pledges and oaths.
He clasped her hand, and said with cheerful confidence: "Only send for her when you are ill, my lord, as long as you remain here.

I know from your own lips that there is no passion which can betray Caesar into perjury.