"Art thou ready to depart for Tyre?
Philip will leave to-morrow.

Do not delay him.

Go and prepare." But the woman rushed on to indiscretion, in her desperate intent to stop the journey to Jerusalem at any cost.
"But there are those of good repute here in Ascalon, sober men and excellent women, who say that our hope for the Branch of David is too late--that Israel is come to judgment, this hour--for He is come and gone and we received Him not!" Costobarus turned upon her sharply.
"What is this ?" he demanded.
"O my husband," she insisted hopefully, "it measures up with prophecy! And they who speak thus confidently say that He prophesied the end of the Holy City, and that this is not the Advent, but doom!" "It is the Nazarene apostasy," he exclaimed in alarm, "alive though the power of Rome and the diligence of the Sanhedrim have striven to destroy it these forty years! Now the poison hath entered mine own house!" A servant bowed within earshot.

Costobarus turned to him hastily.
"Philip of Tyre," the attendant announced.
"Let him enter," Costobarus said.

"Go, Hannah; make Laodice ready--preparations are almost complete; be not her obstacle." "But--but," she insisted with whitening lips, "I have not said that I believe all this.