Do not let us go too fast. There are many things to consider.... MARY MAGDALENE What do you say?... VERUS I say that there are many things to consider.... Had I known nothing whatever of your adventure, my choice would not have been in doubt: I should, while more or less pitying him, have sacrificed the wretched man to the public tranquillity; it is the sovereign law of the empire; but now.... MARY MAGDALENE But now, it is different, you know him, you know everything.... There is no excuse for a moment’s hesitation; it would be monstrous.... VERUS Indeed, there is no excuse for a moment’s hesitation; it would be monstrous, as you say.... Shall I, to snatch a favoured rival from a well-merited death, for the second time lose the only woman whom I love or can love?... That certainly is impossible.... MARY MAGDALENE I do not quite understand.... VERUS Yet it is simple enough: in saving him, I hand you over, without defence, to the fellow who will drag you with him, by fall after fall, to the bottom of none can tell what pit of folly and wretchedness, whence no human and reasoning power will be able to extricate you. Moreover, speaking for myself, I lose you irrevocably by thus giving you, with my own simple, foolish hands, to one who robs me of my happiness by methods against which a man who values the name does not try to struggle. Whereas, if I abandon him to his fate, there remains a chance of seeing you return to the light and for me some prospect of finding you in my path; for our two lives have still, I hope, a long space to cover; and many roads, as you well know, lead to Rome.... MARY MAGDALENE I understand.... I understand, since I needs must understand.... But I do not yet believe.... No, it is not possible; and you, the man whom I know, have not come to tell me coldly that you wish to destroy him and thus revenge yourself for an injury which he has not done you.... There is, there must be, something else.... VERUS Yes, there is something else.... There remains to us, if you are absolutely bent upon it, one means of saving him. But, at the point to which we have come and to which I have driven the adventure, saving him probably means ruin to myself. Besides, time presses. The sentence is written, I have seen it. He will be put to death at daybreak; for the hours are numbered because of the Passover.... MARY MAGDALENE What must I do?... Quick, quick, I will do it.... VERUS The prisoner is guarded by my men; it is therefore not quite impossible to effect his escape.... MARY MAGDALENE Why yes, why yes, it is simple; and that, of course, is what we must do!... Once free, he will hide and he will be forgotten.... Let us lose no time.... But I do not understand why you came to say.... VERUS You will soon understand.... I answer for the prisoner, therefore. Do you know what I am doing, do you know what I risk by restoring him to liberty?... MARY MAGDALENE