"There is no nation here for that dowry to defend, no crown for it to support. But for this same madness which possesses my lady, the princess, I should depart this day for a safer venture, in some safer country!" She faced him intently. "And you will do nothing for Judea?" she asked. "What can be done?" he asked, throwing out his hands with a careless gesture. "Oh," she exclaimed with a rush of passionate feeling, "that I were you! You, with the materials for empire-building at your feet! You, with the hour beseeching you, with a people searching for you, with a treasury filled for you, with ancient prophecy establishing you, ancient precept teaching you, and the cause of God arming you! Philadelphus, son of a great patriot, what are you saying! What can there be done! Oh rather, how dare you not do! What have you about you but the inevitable end of Judah, living contrary to God's plan for it! It is the conscience of Israel rising against its sin and submission! It is the blood of David rebelling against the heathen yoke! It is the hour foretold by Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and the Twelve, when Israel shall repent and be chastened and return to the heritage of Jacob. Be the repairer of the breach! Be the restorer of the paths to dwell in, my husband! Go out and let Israel behold you! Help them to wipe out the shame of Babylonia and Persia and Macedonia and Rome! Make Jerusalem not only a sanctuary but a capital! Restore the glory of David and the peace of Solomon, for those were God's days and Judah can not prosper except as it returns to them! Philadelphus--" Laodice halted abruptly in her appeal, breathless with feeling. The amusement had gone out of his face and his expression was one of mingled discomfort and surprise at her speech. "Since you are a thinking woman," he answered, "I must answer you soberly. Even I, expecting disorder and uproar in Jerusalem, when I came from Ephesus, was not prepared for this chaos! Never was such a time! Order is not possible in this extreme. It is unthinkable. Nothing human can save Jerusalem!" She laid her hand upon him. "Nothing human!" she repeated quickly. "Seest not that this is the time of the Messiah? Be ready to be helped of God!" Philadelphus drew away from her uneasily and looked at her from under lowered brows. "They say," he said in a suppressed voice, as fearing his own words, "that He has come and gone!" She looked at him blankly. He was glad he had thought of this; it would divert her from a discourse momently growing unpleasant for him. And yet he was afraid of the thing he had said. "What dost thou say?" she asked. "He is come and gone--they say." "Come and gone!" He nodded irritably. It made him nervous to dwell on the subject. "Who say?" she demanded. "Many! Many!" he whispered.