"Do not so!" she besought, her eyes large with fright.
He had forced her to defend it, and she had stood to the breach; he had proved the gravity of her disaffection for the faith of Abraham.
"Why wilt thou endanger thyself for this social drift?" he demanded passionately. "Lydia! How canst thou turn from the faith of thy fathers?"
"I—I am not worthy to be a Nazarene!" she answered. "They are forbidden to enact a falsehood!"
"Let be; I do not care for their philosophy; it is like the Law of Rome.—an empty armor that any knave can wear. But I urge thee to behold what misery thou invitest upon thyself! What will come of it? Immortal as thou art in soul, thou canst not keep alive the single spark of wisdom in the ashes of their folly; thou canst not save them against the combined vengeance of the whole world! But thou canst be disgraced with them, persecuted with them, and die with them! Unhallowed the day that ever Classicus spoke their name to thee! Cursed be his words! May the Lord treasure them up against him—!"
"Hush! hush!" she whispered.
He became calm with an effort.
"Lydia," he began after a pause, "it is a poor intelligence that can not foresee as ably as the augurs. One successful life gives opportunity, to all that spring from it, to be successful; a failure scatters the seed of misfortune through all its blood. Choose thou for thyself and thou choosest for a nation which comes after thee. I see thee radiant, crowned, worshiped; and if they who come up under thy guidance walk as thou dost walk, Lydia shall give queens unto principalities and rulers unto satrapies. These be days when women of virtue and women of remark; women of wisdom are remembered women. And thou, virtuous, wise and noble—the empresses of coming Cæsars will assume thy name to conceal their tarnishment under a badge of luster! This on one hand. On the other thou shalt flee from the stones of the rabble, come unto the humiliation of thy womanhood and the agony of thy body in the torture-cell, and die like a criminal!"
She shrank away with a quivering sound and flung her hands over her ears. He caught her and drew her close, until she all but rested on his breast.
"Lydia, naught but mine extremity could make me speak thus to thee," he said tremulously and in a passion of appeal. "If the words be hideous, let the actualities that they mean warn thee in time!"