--no ... think but a moment ... think!... My love?... is it naught to
thee?... Has my kiss left thee cold?... Do not leave me, dear lord ...
do not leave me yet ... not just yet ... now that I know what happiness
can mean. I have been so lonely all my life.... Love hath come to me at
last ... love and happiness.... I am young--I want both.... Dear lord,
if thou lovest me canst leave me desolate?..."

"_If_ I love thee!"

There was so much longing in the one brief phrase, such passion and such
tenderness, that all her hopes revived. One more effort and she felt
sure that she would conquer. Fever was in her veins now, the walls of
the studio swam before her eyes; she fell on her knees for she could no
longer stand, but her arms encircled him, clinging to him with all her
might. Her face, lifted up to his, was swimming in tears, her golden
hair escaping from its trammels fell in a glowing mass down her
shoulders.

"I love thee," she murmured, "canst leave me now, dear lord.... If thou
goest now 'tis for ever ... think, oh think! just for one moment ... the
Caesar restored to power will part me from thee ... even if anon in his
madness he doth not kill thee. If thou goest 'tis for ever.... Think
on it ... think on it ere thou goest.... My love ... my love, go not
from me, and leave me desolate.... Dear lord, but think on it--of the
kisses thou wilt taste from my lips--the ecstasies thou wilt find in my
arms!... Thine am I--thine my heart that loves thee--my body that
worships thee--my every thought is thine.... Go not from me ... not just
now till thou hast felt once more the full savour of my love."

Her arms round his knees, and she was exquisitely beautiful, exquisite
in her whole-hearted love, her whole-hearted abnegation--she, a proud
Roman lady kneeling at his feet, her full red lips asking for a kiss.

He stood with his face buried in his hands.

"Oh God! my God!" he murmured, "do not forsake me now!"

The thunder crashed overhead while a human soul fought its desperate
fight for truth and eternal life. A vivid flash of lightning lit up the
white-washed walls of the studio, and to the poor fighting soul,
tortured with temptation, with longing and with passion, there came in
that swift bright flash a vision of long ago.

The sky lurid and dark, the soil trembling beneath the feet of thousands
of men and women, and there, far away, outlined against that sky, a
figure stretched out upon a Cross. The head was ben