Zarah flushed, trembled, covered her face with her hands, and sank, rather than seated herself, upon the divan from which she had risen on hearing the knock of the Greek. Lycidas ventured to seat himself beside the young maiden, take one of her unresisting hands and press it first to his heart, then to his lips--for he read consent in the silence of Zarah. But the maiden had none of the calm tranquillity of happiness; she felt bewildered, doubtful of herself; again she covered her face and murmured, "Oh, that my mother were here to guide me!" "Hadassah would not have spurned a proselyte whom the elders have received; she was too large-minded, too just," said Lycidas, disappointed and somewhat mortified at the doubts which evidently disturbed the mind of the maiden. "Listen to the plan which I have formed for your escape, my Zarah. I have already made arrangements with the trusty Joab. He will bring a horse-litter an hour after dark to bear you and your handmaid hence; I will accompany you as your armed and mounted attendant. We will direct our course to the coast. At Joppa we shall, I hope, find a vessel, borne forward by whose white wings we shall soon reach my own beautiful and glorious land, where love, freedom, and happiness, shall await my fair Hebrew bride!" For some moments Zarah made no reply; how tempting was the vista thus suddenly opened before her--radiant with rosy light, like those seen in the clouds at sunrise! Then Zarah uncovered her face, but without raising it, or venturing to look at Lycidas, she said, in a voice that trembled with emotion, "Hadassah, my mother, would have deemed it unseemly for a maiden thus to flee from her country to a land where her God is not known and worshipped, and under the protection of one who is none of her kindred." "I thought that you had no kindred, Zarah," said Lycidas, with uneasiness; "that you had none left of your family whose guardianship you could seek." "I have--or had--an aged relative, Rachel of Bethsura," replied Zarah, "who, if she be yet living, will assuredly receive me into her home. But my next of kin are the Asmonean brothers." "The noblest family in the land!" exclaimed the Athenian. "If it be indeed impossible for you to escape with me into Greece--" "Not impossible, but wrong," said Zarah, softly; "it would be disobeying what I know would have been the will of her whose wishes are more sacred to me now than ever." "Then be mine in your own land," cried Lycidas, "where I may show that I merit to win you. Will the noble Judas and his brothers deem me unworthy to unite with one of their race if I devote my sword to the cause of which they are the champions--a cause as glorious as that for which my ancestor died at Marathon?"