"Lydia! Lydia! I fear to leave thee!" he whispered.
She let her eyes light upon him, to catch his meaning, and when she saw terror for her apostasy and amazement for the thing she had done for the Nazarenes, a sudden misery leaped into her face. She tried to put him back.
"Lydia, Lydia!" he begged, feeling the repulse, "dost thou not love me, then?" His tone urged, his eyes pleaded.
For a moment, she was silent; then she said, with infinite pain:
"Marsyas, I broke off the trail of roses through Rhacotis, and held back the multitude from the Nazarenes. But thou art an Essene, and a Jew; wherefore, in thy sight I can not be justified. Forget not these things for my sake! Go, ere thy teaching hath cause to reproach thee."
"No, no!" he agonized. "Do not say that to me! Say rather that thou wilt turn away from this heresy and be led no more by it into transgression! Better thy sweet life and thy sweet fame than all the truth in the world!"
The word he used caught her. She waited and seemed not to breathe. He swept on.
"Art thou, beyond saving, a Nazarene?"
Her face fell, and her soft red lips were parted with a heavy sigh.
"From this night henceforward, Marsyas! I have purchased the blessing dearly."