A moment later Laodice came into the chamber. She was not startled. In her innocent soul she did not realize that this was a sign of the depth of her love for him. He rose and met her half-way across the hall; took her hand and held it while they walked back to the exedra, and gazed at her face for evidence that her sojourn in this house had been unhappy or otherwise; noted that she had let down her hair and braided it; observed every infinitesimal change that can attract only the lover's eye. "Sit," he said, giving her a place beside him. "I came of habit to see you. Of habit, I was interrupted. Is there no way that I can talk to you without the resentment of some one who flourishes a better right to be with you than I can show?" "Where hast thou been," Laodice asked, "so long?" "Was it long," he demanded impulsively, "to you?" "New places, new faces, uncertainty and other things make time seem long," she explained hastily. "Nay, then," he said, "I have been busy. I have been attending to that labor I had in mind for Judea, of which we spoke in the hills that morning." Laodice drew in a quick breath. Then some one, if not herself or the husband who had denied her, was at work for Judea. "There is no nation, here, for a king," he went on. "It is a great horde that needs organization. It wants a leader. I am ambitious and Judea will be the prize to the ablest man. Seest thou mine intent?" "You--you aspire--" she began and halted, suddenly impressed with the complication his announcement had effected. "Go on," he said. "You would take Judea?" "I would." "But it belongs of descent to the Maccabees!" "To Philadelphus Maccabaeus, yes; but what is he doing?" She dropped her head. "Nothing," she said in a half-whisper. "No? But let me tell you what I have done already. Three days ago Titus took revenge upon Coenopolis for her sortie against Nicanor by firing the suburbs. The citizens could not spare water to fight the fire, and after futile attempts they gathered up food and treasure and fled into Jerusalem. Now, a thousand householders in the streets of this oppressed city, with their gods and their goods in their arms, made the pillagers of Simon and John laugh aloud. They fell upon these wandering, bewildered, treasure-laden people and robbed them as readily and as joyously as a husbandman gathers olives in a fat year. Oh, it was a merry time for the men of Simon and the men of John! But I in my wanderings over the city came upon a party of Bezethans, reluctant to surrender their goods for the asking, and they were fighting with right good will a body of Idumeans twice their number. In fact they fought so well, so unanimously, so silently that I saw they lacked the essential part of the fight--the shouting. That I supplied. And when they had whipped the Idumeans and had a chance for flight before reinforcements came, they obeyed my voice in so far as they followed me into a subterranean chamber beneath a burned ruin on Zion.