s for
Christ, and the renunciation of all that had made life easy and pleasant
hitherto. God alone knew how easy that would have been to him
forty-eight hours ago. Taurus Antinor hated and despised the life of
Rome, the tyranny of a demented Caesar, the indolence of the daily
routine, the ever-recurrent spectacles of hideous, inhuman cruelty.
Until that midday hour in the Forum four days ago, he had viewed his new
prospective life with a sense of infinite relief.

But now renunciation meant something more. Detachment from Rome and all
its pomps, its glories, and its cruelties meant also detachment from the
presence of Dea Flavia. It meant the tearing out of his very
heartstrings which had found root at a woman's feet. It meant the
drawing of an impenetrable veil between life itself and all that
henceforth could alone make life dear.

He had dreamed a dream, the exquisite beauty of which had wrought havoc
in his innermost soul, but the awakening had come before the glorious
dream had found its complete birth. Jesus of Nazareth had called to him
from the Cross, but even as He called, the pierced, sacred hand had
pointed to the broad path strewn with gold and roses, filled with the
fragrance of lilies and thrilled with the song of mating birds: and the
dying voice had gently murmured: "Choose!"

The soldier had chosen and was ready to go. But renunciation was not to
be the easy turning away from a road that was none too dear--it was to
be a sacrifice!--the taking up of the cross and the slow, weary mounting
up, up to Calvary, with aching back and sweating brow and the dreary
tragedy of utter loneliness.

It meant the giving up of every delight of manhood, of happiness in a
woman's smile, of rapture in a woman's kiss. It meant the giving up of
every joy in seeing her pass before him, of hearing the swish of her
skirts on the pavement of the city; it meant the giving up of all hope
ever to win her, of all thought of a future home, the patter of
children's feet, the rocking of a tiny cradle. It meant the sacrifice of
every thought of happiness and of every desire of body and of soul.

It meant the nailing of a heart to the foot of a cross.

CHAPTER XVIII

"So I gave them up unto their own heart's lust: and they walked
in their own counsels."--PSALMS LXXXI. 12.

In the meanwhile the stage-hands, the smiths and carpenters had been
busily at work, setting the scene for the coming drama.

Huge gnarled tree-trun