But at the threshold, indecision and astonishment and acute realization of the meaning of the thing he was doing seized him. He whirled about. Classicus stood beneath the cluster of lamps, his face alight with triumphant superciliousness. Even under Marsyas' eye the expression did not alter. Lydia seemed to have shrunk; her hands clasped before her were wrung about each other in an agony of restraint, but the pitiful appeal in her eyes was all that Marsyas saw. In an instant he was again at her side, his heart speaking in his face. "Thou wearest yet the free locks of maidenhood," he said, in a voice so smooth and low that it chilled her, "perchance thou wilt tell me ere I depart if thou art to marry--this man?" For a moment there was silence; Marsyas heard his mad heart beating, but if Classicus felt apprehension, there was no display of it on his face. Then Lydia raised her head. "No," she said, in a voice barely audible. Marsyas turned upon Classicus, and between the two there passed the silent communication of men who wholly understand each other. Then Classicus took up his kerchief, and, with a smile and a wave of his hand, walked out of the presiding-room. But Lydia was out of reach of Marsyas' arms when he turned to her. Crying and afraid, she motioned him back as he pressed toward her. He stopped. "Am I still unacceptable to thee, Lydia?" he asked. "O Marsyas, thou returnest in the same spirit as thou didst depart from me--unchanged, unchanged! But striving to change--for my sake! Do not so, for me! Not for me!" The grief and pleading in the black eyes that rested upon her changed slowly. Rebuffed and stung he threw up his head. "Better the old Essenic shape in which I was bound against thee and thou against me?" he said bitterly. "So! The Essenes seem not to be wrong in their teaching of distrust in women!" If he expected her to retort, the compassion and gentleness in her answer surprised him. "Not that, my Marsyas," she said, coming nearer to him in her earnestness. "But change does not consist in the raiment thou wearest, nor in the claim to be altered. Thou canst not in truth believe that I have done right! Thou forgivest me for thy love's sake, but thy intelligence is no less critical! I can not, will not put away the faith of the Master; I can not regret the spirit of the deed I did for their sake. And between us it is as it was the night I sent thee from me, so long ago!" "But I have changed," he protested hastily. "The world hath taught me much: I can understand; I can extenuate greater errors--I have done so; believe me, it is only for thy sake--" "But canst thou wholly acquit me--wholly justify me, Marsyas?" He looked at her with pleading in his eyes, and made no answer. "No man should wed or worship with a single doubt," she said. Fearing more than he dared confess to himself, he caught her hands and would not let her leave him.