"Charging us with abduction?" she remarked. "Charging no man with abduction, but declaring that she was missing from thy father's roof!" Classicus' face filled with contrite humiliation under her gaze. "Why so late with the story?" she asked. "Why didst thou not come to us before thou wast persuaded to go!" "Charge me not with more folly than I did commit!" he besought. "I was caught by his servants in the Brucheum and haled before him, where, in all excitement, he told that the Lady Cypros was missing, and that I, as the safe friend of the alabarch and the proconsul, had been commissioned to enlist Caesar's interest in her cause! The vessel ready for Puteoli waited only on the night-winds to sail! I was not given time to change my raiment, or to fill my purse from mine own treasure, much less to take counsel with thy father and learn the truth!" "And besides Flaccus, we must now take Caesar into consideration in protecting this unhappy woman!" she exclaimed. "No!" he cried. "A friend of Agrippa's, whom I met in Rome, stopped me in time!" She looked away from him and he took her hand. "Am I pardoned?" he asked plaintively. "Thou didst no harm; but it should serve to awaken thee to the evil in this dangerous Roman! If only Agrippa would return, how readily the skies would brighten for us all!" "What wilt thou do if the Herod returns not?" he asked after a little silence. "Do not speak of it, Classicus," she said hurriedly. "Flaccus is desperate." "If Agrippa abandon Cypros," he offered, "she can divorce him, and simplify the tangle." "Oh, no, Justin! Cypros is bound heart and soul to Agrippa. Even if he died, she would not turn to Flaccus! The dear Lord be thanked that we have a virtuous woman to defend!" "Nay, then, thou strict little rabbin, what shall we do?" "How slow these ships! The last letter we sent to him can hardly have reached Sicily!" "He hath had a sufficiency of letters by this time! What was it he wrote thy father, last: 'I come with all speed; but reflect that Caesar is master over me: his consent is needful!' Ha! ha! Caligula would give Agrippa half his Empire did he ask for it!" She leaned her cheek in her hand, turning her face away from Classicus. "Alas! I know why he lingers," she said to herself. "Marsyas hath departed unto Judea, and Agrippa lacks his controlling hand!" "I appreciate the peril threatening thy father's house," the philosopher added after her continued silence, "and thou knowest thou shall have my help--blundering as it may be!" There were footsteps in the vestibule, and the alabarch stood in the archway. Lydia sprang up. "What," she cried, unable to wait for his report, "what said the proconsul?" The alabarch came into his presiding-room with a slow step; he let his cloak fall on his chair, and stood in the lamplight worn and troubled. Seeing Classicus, he greeted the visitor before he answered Lydia.