He rose, and striding round cautiously explored the dusty road silvered by the moon, the bushes, and even the sea, as if afraid to see sudden-rising spies from the Emperor. Reassured, he returned and sat down. Leaning one hand heavily on the marble he brought his lips close to the ear of Arsinoë—so near that she felt his warm breath—muttering rapidly—
"Believe in Him?... Listen, girl! I say to you now what I have never dared to say even to myself. I hate the Galilean!... But I have lied as long as I can remember. Lying has soaked into my soul, or clung to it, as this black vestment clings to my body. You remember the poisoned shirt of Nessus; Hercules snatched it off with pieces of his own flesh and it slew him, all the same. I—I too shall perish wearing this Galilean lie!"
He pronounced each word with painful effort. Arsinoë gazed at him. His face, changed by suffering and hatred, became the face of a stranger.
"Be calm, friend!" she murmured. "Tell me all. I shall understand you better than anyone else."
"I should like to be able to speak, but speech is a power I have lost," sneered Julian. "I have kept silence too long. Do you understand, Arsinoë? It is all over with him who has once fallen into their clutches! These good and humble men deform him to such a degree—teach him so thoroughly to lie and to dissimulate—that it becomes impossible ever to stand erect and manful again!"
The blood rushed to his forehead, swelling the veins, and through clenched teeth he muttered—
"Cowardice! Foul Galilean cowardice! this—to hate your enemy as I hate Constantius, and to pardon him, to crouch at his feet, cringe like a serpent, to supplicate him in the humble Christian manner: 'A year, grant your weak-witted slave, Julian, another year; and then do with him as it may please you and your counsellors, O well-beloved of God!' What baseness!"
"No, Julian," protested Arsinoë, "you will conquer! Deception is your strength.... Julian, do you remember Æsop's fable, The Ass in the Lion's Skin? In this affair of yours the story is reversed; the lion is in the ass's skin, and the hero in a monkish habit! And how they will shrink affrighted when you suddenly show your talons! What joy and what terror! Tell me, you long for power?"
"Power!" cried Julian, intoxicated at the sound of the word and inhaling with deep breaths the fresh air of night—"power!... oh, only for a year, a few months, a few days! And I would teach them, I would teach all these crawling and venomous creatures what means their Master's word, 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's'; I swear by the Sun-god they should render to Cæsar what is his!"
He raised his head, his eyes flashing with rage and pride and renewed youth. Arsinoë gazed on him with a smile. But his head soon fell. He sank back on the bench and crossing his arms on his breast in monkish fashion he faltered—