She could hear that voice now, even as at this moment from afar a muffled sound of thunder went echoing over the hills, and, strive as she might, wherever she looked her eyes were haunted by the vision which he had conjured up of a man with arms outstretched upon a cross, whose might was yet greater than that of Rome.
At the time she had been greatly angered. The praefect had spoken traitorous words, and she had hated him—she hated him still—for that allegiance which he seemed to have given to another. Then, with a quick, elusive trick, memory showed her the massive shoulders bent humbly at her feet, tying the strings of her shoe—a simple homage due to the daughter of Cæsar—and the sharp pang of wrath once more shot through her heart with the remembrance that he had not deigned to press his lips against her foot.
The man's face and figure haunted her for it was the face and the figure of one whom she had learnt to hate. Yes! She hated him for his treason to Cæsar, for his allegiance to that rebel from Galilee; she hated every word which he had spoken in that arrogant, masterful way of his, when he smiled upon her threats and calmly spoke of immortality. She hated the voice which perpetually rang in her ear, the voice with which he spoke of his own soul being in the keeping of God—of One Whose Empire is mightier than that of Rome.
Yet vaguely still—for she was but a girl—the woman in her was stirred; the power and desire which exists in every woman's soul to conquer that which seems furthest from her reach. She hated the man, and yet within her inmost heart there had sprung the desire to curb and possess his; to disturb the perfect serenity that dwelt in his deep-set eyes, to kindle in them a passion which would make of that proud spirit a mere slave to her will.
There was in her just now nothing but the pagan desire to rule, and to break a heart if need be, if she could not otherwise subdue it.
Memory had fanned her wrath. She saw him now as she had seen him yesterday, arrogantly thwarting her will, his bitter tongue lashing her with irony; and now, as yesterday, the blush of humiliation burned her cheeks, and her pride and dignity rose up in passionate revolt against the one man who had ever defied her and who had proudly proclaimed his allegiance to a man who was not the Cæsar.
That allegiance belonged to Cæsar and to his might alone; beyond that there was the House of Cæsar, and failing that, nothing but rebellious treachery. And the troubled look grew deeper in Dea Flavia's face, and now she buried her hot cheeks in her hands, for the humiliation which she had endured yesterday from one man seemed to shame her even now.
"I'll break thy will," she murmured, whilst angry tears rose, burning, to her eyes. "I'll shame thy manhood and never rest until I see thee crawling—an abject slave—at the feet of Cæsar, who shall kick thee in the face. Cæsar and the House of Cæsar brook no rivalry in the heart of a Roman patrician."
Her hands dropped from before her face. She threw back her head, and looked straight before her into the darkest corner of the room.
"Jesus of Nazareth, he called thee!" she said slowly and as if speaking to an invisible presence. "And he said at thy call he would give up the world, and suffer death and torture and shame for thee!... Then so be it! And I do defy thee, O man of Galilee! even I, Dea Flavia Augusta, of the imperial House of Cæsar! For that man whom I hate and despise, for that man who has defied and shamed me, for that man whose heart and allegiance thou hast filched from Cæsar, for him will I do thee battle ... and that heart will I conquer; and it shall be Cæsar's and mine—mine—for I will break it and crush it first and then wrest it from thee!"