f so far as to listen more closely,
to ascertain whence it came and what it could mean.

A large number of persons must be assembled there, for she could
distinguish several male voices, and now and then a woman's. A door was
opened. She shrank closer to the wall, but the seconds became minutes,
and no one appeared.

At last she fancied she heard the moving of benches or seats, and many
voices together shouting she knew not what. Then again a door creaked on
its hinges, and after that all was so still that she could have heard
a needle drop on the floor; and this alarming silence continued till
presently a deep, resonant man's voice was audible.

The singular manner in which this voice gave every word its full and
equal value suggested to her fancy that something was being read aloud.
She could distinctly hear the sentence with which the speech or reading
began. After a short pause it was repeated somewhat more quickly, as
though the speaker had this time uttered it from his own heart.

It consisted of these six simple words, "The fullness of the time was
come"; and Melissa listened no more to the discourse which followed,
spoken as it was in a low voice, for this sentence rang in her ears as
if it were repeated by an echo.

She did not, to be sure, understand its meaning, but she felt as though
it must have some deep significance. It came back to her again and
again, like a melody which haunts the inward ear against our will; and
her meditative fancy was trying to solve its meaning, when Diodoros
returned to tell her that the street was quite empty. He knew now where
they were, and, if she liked, he could lead her by a way which would not
take them through the gate. Only Christians, Egyptians, and other common
folks dwelt in this quarter; however, since his duty as her protector
had this day begun, he would fulfill it to the best of his ability.

She went with him out into the street, and when they had gone a little
way he clasped her to him and kissed her hair.

His heart was full. He knew now that she, whom he had loved when she
walked in his father's garden in her little child's tunic, holding her
mother's hand, returned his passion. Now the time was come for asking
whether she would permit him to beg her father's leave to woo her.

He stopped in the shadow of a house near, and, while he poured out to
her all that stirred his breast, carried away by tender passion, and
describing in his vehement way how grea