"Now who will imperil himself by giving her asylum?" he pondered.
Lydia looked up after a little thought.
"The Nazarenes," she ventured timidly.
"What! The apostates! The community is the most perilous spot in Egypt!"
"Here in Alexandria, of a truth," Lydia hurried on eagerly, "but thou knowest by report that they have spread abroad among rustics and shepherds as a running vine. Many are living about over the Delta. One of them will shelter her, I know. She will go when we have told her what threatens, nor fail to flourish on their rough fare, since she hath made her bed by the roadways, and had her bread from the hands of wayside mendicants!"
The alabarch arose and set her on her feet.
"Haste, then, Lydia; no time is to be lost!"
But before she reached the threshold of the archway she turned back and came slowly to him, closer and closer, until she raised her arms and put them about his neck.
"Father!" she whispered, "we need have fear of Classicus."
The pallor on the old man's face quivered like the reflection of a shaken light.