the
step of the Roman on her threshold welcome. It was an old, old moral,
so old that it had never had weight with her, who believed it was time
to reconstruct the whole artistic attitude of the world.

And that was why she waited impatiently at her doorway for death,
which was a kinder thing than life.

Chapter XXIV

THE ROAD TO PELLA

There was no incident in the Maccabee's long struggle through the inky
blackness of the tunnel leading under Moriah.

It was night when the first new air from the outside world reached
him. So he rushed into great open darkness, lighted with stars, before
he knew that he had emerged from the underground passage.

Entire silence after the turmoil which had shaken Jerusalem for many
months fell almost like a blow upon his unaccustomed ears. The air was
sweet. He had not breathed sweet air since May. The hills were
solitary. Week in and week out, he had never been away from the sound
of groaning thousands. Not since he had assumed his disguise to
Laodice in the wilderness had he been close to the immemorial repose
of nature. All his primitive manhood rushed back to him, now
infuriated with a fear that his love was the spoil of another.

All instinct became alert; all his intelligence and resource assembled
to his aid. It came to him as inspiration always occurs at such times,
that if the pair proceeded rationally, they would move toward a secure
place at once. Pella occurred to him in a happy moment.

He took his bearings by the stars and hurried north and east.

He came upon a road presently, almost obliterated by a summer's drift
of dust and sand. It had been long since any one had gone up that way
to Jerusalem. There was no moon to show him whether there were any
recent marks of fugitives fleeing that way.

He did not expect that Julian of Ephesus would have courage to halt
within sight of the glow on the western horizon which was the burning
from the Temple. He expected the Ephesian to flee far and long, and in
that consciousness of the cowardice of his enemy he based his hope.

But he ran tirelessly, seeking right and left, led on by instinct
toward the Christian city in the north.

At times, his terror for Laodice made him cry out; again, he made
violent pictures of his revenge upon Julian; and at other moments, he
believed, while drops stood on his forehead from the effort of faith,
that his new Christ would save her yet. There were moments when he was
ready t