It was a night that the Maccabee did not readily forget. Since the girl had moved on to avoid him, he had become alive to a delinquency that was more of a sensation than an admission. His thought of her, that had been a diversion before, now seemed to be a transgression. An incident of this nature during the fourteen years of his life in Ephesus would have engaged his conscience only a moment if at all, but at this last hour it amounted to a deflection from his newly resolved uprightness. Julian rode in a constant air of expectancy and increasing irritation. The slightest sound from the haunted hills elicited a start from him and his intense attention until the origin of the sound proved itself. Many Passover pilgrims who had proceeded by night passed under his close scrutiny and from time to time he stopped the Maccabee in a speech with a peremptory command to listen. All this engaged the Maccabee's interest, but he made no comment until, on occasion of his casual word in praise of the fidelity of Aquila, Julian flew into a rage and reviled the emissary until the Maccabee brought him up with a sharp word. "Enough of that!" he exclaimed. "What ails you, man?" Julian caught his breath and after a silence replied in a voice considerably sweetened that Aquila was a conscienceless pagan and not to be praised till he was dead. But the Maccabee, with the girl uppermost in his mind, believed that his cousin was inwardly resenting his preëmption of the pretty stranger. The fact that Julian had changed the pace of their advance confirmed him in this suspicion. From the smart trot that they had maintained from the time they had left Cæsarea, they had declined to a walk. Julian next showed inclination to loiter. He spent an unusual length of time at every spring at which they watered their horses; an unseen break in his harness engaged a prolonged halt on the road; he stopped at an unroofed hut to rouse sleeping Passover pilgrims who had taken refuge within to ask how far they were from Jerusalem, and wrangled with the sleepy Jew for many minutes over the hazy estimate the man had given him. With each of these pretenses the Maccabee's conviction grew that the girl had something to do with the altered behavior of his cousin. And with that growing conviction, he became the more convinced that he ought to maintain an espionage of Julian. At midnight they were both tired, exasperated, moody, and determined against each other. They had not journeyed thirty furlongs.