Pale, and with slightly quivering limbs, he dismissed the prefect and his other friends, and desired Epagathos to call Melissa.
He needed rest, and again the girl's little hand, which had yesterday done him good, proved its healing power.

The throbbing in his head yielded to her gentle touch, and by degrees exhaustion gave way to the comfortable languor of convalesence.
To-day, as yesterday, he expressed his thanks to Melissa, but he found her changed.

She looked timidly and anxiously down into her lap excepting when she replied to a direct question; and yet he had done everything to please her.

Her relations would soon be free and in Alexandria once more, and Zminis was in prison, chained hand and foot.
This he told her; and, though she was glad, it was not enough to restore the calm cheerfulness he had loved to see in her.
He urged her, with warm insistence, to tell him what it was that weighed on her, and at last, with eyes full of tears, she forced herself to say: "You yourself have seen what they take me for." "And you have seen," he quickly replied, "how I punish those who forget the respect they owe to you." "But you are so dreadful in your wrath!" The words broke from her lips.
"Where others blame, you can destroy; and you do it, too, when passion carries you away.

I am bound to obey your call, and here I am.