t in agony, the eyes
half-closed, the lips livid and parted, the body broken with torments
had the rigidity of death. But the arms were stretched out, straight and
wide, as if with one last gesture of appeal and of longing, and in this
storm-laden air there floated tender words, intangible and soft as a
memory.

"Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will
refresh you."

It was but a vision, swift as the lightning flash that conjured it and
the words had already died on the stillness of the air.

But the tortured soul had found its anchorage. Taurus Antinor's hands
fell from before his face.

"In Thy service, O Jesus of Galilee!" he said, and the mighty effort of
subjection brought the perspiration to his brow and caused his limbs to
tremble. "I saw Thine agony, Thy sacrifice; it should be so easy to do
this for Thy sake. Give me the strength to render unto Caesar that which
is Caesar's, and do Thou take from me all that is Thine."

She heard his words, she saw the look and knew that she had failed.

Back on the cruel wings of remembrance came the words of Menecreta the
slave.

"May thine every deed of mercy be turned to sorrow and to humiliation,
thine every act of pity prove a curse to him who receives it, until thou
on thy knees art left to sue for pity to a heart that knoweth it not,
and findest a deaf ear turned unto thy cry!"

And the curse of the broken-hearted mother seemed like the tangible
response to the defiance which she, in her arrogance and her pride, had
hurled against him who was called Jesus of Nazareth. She would have
blessed Menecreta and Menecreta was dead; she would have given her life
for the Caesar and the Caesar was a cowardly fugitive, and now on her
knees she had sued for pity, and the heart which she had fought for to
possess had turned from her as if it knew neither mercy nor love, and
whilst her very soul had cried with longing she had found a deaf ear
turned to her cry.

That unknown Galilean who died upon the cross had been stronger than her
love. It was he who was filching it from its allegiance, he who was
brushing and crushing this heart ere he wrested it finally from her--Dea
Flavia Augusta of the imperial House of Caesar!

The Galilean had accepted her challenge and he had conquered, and she
was naught in the heart of the one man she would have given her whole
life to call her own.

She gave a cry like a wounded bird, she jumped to her feet, and fo