“Aye; and you poisoned your Lord for a night’s pastime, and took his fortune and would sell your daughter to me to play wanton again for another rich husband! Think you I would love Thecla if she had been such as you?” and the wretched man broke again into terrible sobbing. For a second, the incarnate fury standing above the unguarded man could not speak; and when she spoke, it was in the hiss of a serpent about to strike. “Say you—that—to me?” she demanded. “Know you not I could denounce you to the Romans to-night as the corrupter of my daughter and the cause of all this riot to gain your ends? Say—you—that—to me? Take back what you said—fool!” “Say—that—to you!” The man sprang to his feet and seized her by the throat. “Yes—that—and that—and that,” he stabbed her at each word, flung her on the tessellated pavement, and not pausing to see whether she were living or dead, dashed through the doorway to the street and ran through the deserted city for the theater, where all Iconium had thronged. He did not notice his sky-blue jacket was spattered with blood. He had flung his bloody dagger from him as he ran. He was a madman. He knew not whether the roar he heard were in his own bursting brain, or from the tier on tier of stone seats in the open theater, where all Iconium was stamping their impatience and shouting for the performance to begin. He tossed the guard at the gate a gold coin; and the Roman laughed. “He was the maid’s lover,” said the Roman; and Thamyris vaulted the stone stairs to the highest seat, where he could see both audience and arena. The trumpets were blowing. Riders on horses with ribbons and tassels were prancing round the arena. The great lady Trefina from Rome was entering the royal box, for pipes and bugles and trumpets blew a blast; and the drums beat for the stone doors to lift and admit the wild beasts to the sanded circle below the spectators. First came a lioness lashing her tail from side to side; but the spectators hissed. “Too full-fed,” the Greek merchant heard a Roman soldier behind him saying. “If we had known the Lady Trefina was to be here to-night, we could have starved the beast so she’d fight. I’d say—let in her cubs! Stab one of her cubs, and she’ll liven up!”