Pudens had been dismissed from his post among the _excubitors_ of the Palace, under the semblance of honourable promotion, but in reality because Nero was doubly displeased by his fidelity to Britannicus and by the blow which (as he had accidentally discovered) Pudens had given him during the nocturnal encounter. But, as he had been an excubitor for so long, he had been accustomed to keep some of his armour and a few books in a room in the Palace, and he sent Onesimus to fetch them. As he went to this room under the guidance of one of Cæsar’s slaves, Onesimus heard a low voice singing the burden of one of the Phrygian songs with which he had been familiar in old days at Thyatira. He was a creature of impulse, and, without thinking what he was doing, he took up the refrain of the song. Immediately the door opened, and a beautiful dark-eyed girl asked in an agitated voice, and in the dialect of Phrygia, who had taken up the song. The sound of his native tongue sent through the heart of Onesimus that indescribable thrill which we feel when past recollections are suddenly brought home to us in long-accumulated arrears. Greek had been spoken in the household of Philemon. He had scarcely heard his native Phrygian since he had been a free-born child, before he had incurred the stain of being sold as a slave. He answered in Phrygian that he had known the song since he was a child at his mother’s knee in Thyatira. ‘In Thyatira?’ said the girl; then gazing at him long and earnestly, she flung up her arms and exclaimed, ‘Can this be Onesimus?’ ‘Do you know my name, lady?’ he asked in surprise. ‘Look at me,’ she answered. ‘It is twelve years since we met, but do you not recall--’ He fixed his eyes on her face and said in a troubled voice, ‘You are like Eunice, the daughter of my mother’s sister, with whom I was brought up as a child.’ ‘Hush!’ she exclaimed; ‘step aside for a moment, Onesimus; I _am_ Eunice, but for many years I have not been known by that name. When the fortunes of our house were ruined I too was sold as a slave with you to the purple factory of Lydia; but a freedman of the Emperor Claudius saw me and brought me to wait upon the Empress Messalina. He thought my name too fine, and changed it to Acte.’ ‘Acte?’ burst out Onesimus; ‘then you are,’--he broke off and remained silent. A blush suffused the girl’s cheek. ‘A slave,’ she said, ‘is forced to do her master’s bidding. Nero loved me sincerely, and I loved him, and I was ignorant and very young. But it is past. The affections of Nero are turned elsewhere; yet none can say that I have ever used my influence for any but kind ends.’ ‘I reproached you not, Acte,’ said Onesimus, ‘if I must call you by your new name. I have far too much wherewith to reproach myself.’ ‘Meet me here,’ said Acte, ‘two hours after noon, and you shall tell me all your story, and how I can help you.’