that
Fate itself had brought about this pause just at this spot; and when she
heard the mosaic-worker exclaim, "The great Roman physician!" horses,
coach, and everything swam before her eyes; she snatched her hand away
from that of Andreas, and stepped out on the roadway. In an instant she
was standing face to face with the venerable leech.

She heard the warning voice of her companion, she saw the crowd staring
at her, she had, no doubt, a brief struggle with her maidenly shyness,
but she carried out her purpose. The thought that the gods themselves
were helping her to appeal to the only man who could save her lover,
encouraged her to defy every obstacle.

She was standing by the vehicle; and scarcely had she raised her sweet,
innocent, blushing face with pathetic and touching entreaty to the
white-haired Roman, her large, tear-filled eyes meeting his, when he
beckoned her to him, and in pleasant, sympathetic tones desired to know
what she wanted. Then she made bold to ask whether he were the great
Roman physician, and he replied with a flattered and kindly smile that
he was sometimes so called. Her thankful glance to heaven revealed what
a comfort his words were, and now her rosy lips moved freely, and she
hurriedly, but with growing courage, gave him to understand that her
betrothed, the son of a respected Roman citizen of Alexandria, was
lying badly wounded in the head by a stone, and that the leech who was
treating him had said that none but he, the great Galenus, could save
the young man's life. She also explained that Ptolemaeus, though he had
said that Diodoros needed quiet above all things, had proposed to carry
him to the Serapeum, and to commend him there to the care of his greater
colleague, but that she feared the worst results from the move. She
glanced pleadingly into the Roman's eyes, and added that he looked so
kind that she hoped that he would go instead to see the sufferer, who
had, quite by chance, been taken into a Christian house not very far
from the Serapeum, where he was being taken good care of, and--as a
matter of course--cure her lover.

The old man had only interrupted her tale with a few sly questions as
to her love-affair and her religion; for when she had told him that
Diodoros was under the care of Christians, it had occurred to him that
this simply but not poorly dressed girl, with her modest ways and sweet,
calm face, might herself be a Christian. He was almost surprised when
she d