The interest of the recent interview and the excitement of the night slowly died away, leaving Laodice in the dead hopelessness of weary despair. She lay down suddenly with her face against the warmed sand and wept. Momus sat down beside her, covered her with a leopard skin taken from his own swarthy shoulders, and soothed her with awkward touches on cheek and hair, till her tears exhausted her and she slept. Stealthily then the old man rolled up her own mantle and put it under her head and prepared to watch. And then as he sat with his knee drawn up, his head bowed upon it, the weakness of slumber gradually stole away his watchfulness and his concern. Some time later, before the deliberate dawn of a March day had put out the last of the greater stars, two men on horses descended the declivity just above the shelter of sheepskins and attracted by the dull glow of the fire drew up cautiously. At a word from one of the men, the other alighted and, peering from the shelter of a prostrate cedar, inspected the pair. After assuring himself that there were but two about the camp, one a woman and both asleep, he tiptoed back to his fellow. "Only a man and a woman," he said. "Jews on their way to the Passover. Their fire is almost out. Let us ride on." "What haste!" the one who had kept his saddle said. "One would think it were you going forward to meet a bride and her dowry! I am hungry. Let us borrow of this fire and get breakfast." "Emmaus is only a little farther on," the first man protested. "I am tired of wayside meals, Philadelphus. I would eat at a khan again before I forget the custom." "How is the pair favored?" the other said provokingly. "I did not approach near enough," the other retorted. "It seemed to be an old man and a girl." "Pretty?" the one called Philadelphus asked. "I did not see." "Married, Julian?" "How could I tell?" Julian flared. Philadelphus laughed, and dismounted. "I shall see for myself," he declared, walking over to the sheltering cedar to look. Julian followed him nervously, saying under his breath: "You waste time deliberately!" "Tut! You merely wish to keep me from seeing this girl," Philadelphus retorted. He, too, stopped at the prostrate cedar and gazed under the sagging shelter of skins. "Shade of Helen!" he exclaimed under his breath as the firelight gave him perfect view of the sleeping girl. "What have we here?" Julian made no response. He drew nearer and looked in silence. "Now what are they to each other?" Philadelphus continued. "Father and daughter; lady and servant or--a courtezan and her manager?" At the continued silence of his companion, he argued his question himself. "No such ill-fashioned peasant loins as his ever begat such sweet patrician perfection as that!" he declared. "And a lady rich enough to have one servant would travel with more than one or not at all--" Julian broke in with sudden avid interest.