"Marsyas, I broke off the trail of roses through Rhacotis, and held back the multitude from the Nazarenes. But thou art an Essene, and a Jew; wherefore, in thy sight I can not be justified. Forget not these things for my sake! Go, ere thy teaching hath cause to reproach thee." "No, no!" he agonized. "Do not say that to me! Say rather that thou wilt turn away from this heresy and be led no more by it into transgression! Better thy sweet life and thy sweet fame than all the truth in the world!" The word he used caught her. She waited and seemed not to breathe. He swept on. "Art thou, beyond saving, a Nazarene?" Her face fell, and her soft red lips were parted with a heavy sigh. "From this night henceforward, Marsyas! I have purchased the blessing dearly." She took the hands about her and undid them. "Go!" she whispered. "Farewell, and the one God, that loves us all, shield thee from harm all the days of thy life!" A moment and she was gone. After a while he turned and walked with stumbling feet into the new dawn on Alexandria. CHAPTER XXII "IN THE CLOAK OF TWO COLORS" Marsyas turned on the gilded couch, threw off the light covering and sat up. A Syrian slave thrust aside the heavy drapery over the cancelli, which had been drawn in the atrium while the young man slept. In the brilliant light of the Roman mid-afternoon, Marsyas looked sleepily at the slave that bowed beside him, and the courier that stood near by. "A message for thee," the slave said. Marsyas put out his hand and the courier laid in it a package wrapped in silk. Marsyas broke the seal and read the contents. "O MARSYAS: "Gossip hath it now that thou art no longer confused when a woman addresses thee: wherefore I write with less trepidation and more confidence. "I am in Rome these seven days, under my father's roof, for a little space before we are commanded to join Caesar in Capri. In this time I have not seen thee nor thy lord. "If not myself, then perchance the news I bring from Alexandria may urge thee to accept the invitation I extend. "There exists no greater claim than thine upon my hospitality. "Come thou, and make me welcome in mine own city. "JUNIA." Marsyas sprang up, the last of the languor gone from his face. "Thou shalt conduct me," he said to the messenger. He disappeared in the direction of his cubiculum. In a time longer than he had consumed in his old Essenic days to prepare himself for the streets he came again into Agrippa's atrium.