"No; why?" she answered simply. "Why detest Him? Did not the sages of Hellas come near, in their teaching, to the message of the Galilean? Those who in the desert martyrise soul and body are far from the humble Son of Mary. He used to love children, freedom, cheerfulness, and the fair white lilies of the field. He loved beauty, Julian!... We have wandered from Him and become entangled and embittered. All call you the Apostate, ... but it is they who are the apostates...." The Emperor knelt down before Arsinoë and raised upon her eyes full of prayer; tears coursed slowly down his lean cheeks. "It must not be," he murmured. "Do not speak. Why? Why? Let be what has been!... Do not again become mine enemy!" "No, no! I must say it all to you," exclaimed Arsinoë. "Listen! I know that you love Him! It is so, and that is the fatality upon you. Against whom have you revolted? What kind of enemy are you for Him? When your lips are cursing the Crucified, your heart is aspiring after Him. When you are struggling against His name, you are closer to Him, closer to His spirit, than those who repeat with dead lips, 'Lord, Lord'!... And it is they who are your enemies, and not He. Ah! why do you torture yourself more than the Galilean monks?" The Emperor tore himself from the clasp of Arsinoë, and stood up, pale as one dead. His face again grew restless, and in his eyes shone the old hatred. He muttered with sorrowful irony-- "Away with you! Go from me! I know the devices of the Galileans!" Arsinoë gazed at him in fear and despair, as at one insane-- "Julian!... Julian, what is the matter? Is it possible that a mere name...." But he had regained cold self-possession. His eyes were lustreless, his air indifferent, almost contemptuous; the Roman Emperor was speaking to a Galilean. "Depart, Arsinoë. Forget all that I have said. It was a moment of weakness which is over. I am tranquil. You see, we must remain strangers. The shadow of the Crucified is always between us. You have not renounced Him, and he who is not His enemy cannot be my friend...." She fell on her knees before him-- "Why? why? What are you doing? Have pity on me; have pity on yourself, before it is too late! For this is madness. Return, or you must...." She paused, and he completed the sentence for her with a haughty smile-- "Or I must perish, you mean, Arsinoë? Be it so. I shall follow my road to the end, lead where it may! If, as you say, I have been unjust toward the wisdom of the Galileans, remember what I have borne at their hands. How numberless, how despicable were my enemies!... The other day some Roman soldiers found before my eyes, in a Mesopotamian marsh, a lion tortured by flies. They had buried themselves in his throat, in his ears, in his nostrils, choking his breath, sealing his eyes, and in their stinging myriads had mastered even his powers at last! Such shall my death be, and such the victory of the Galileans over Cæsar!"