They stood up all around, forming a great amphitheatre—the great, grey stones that had weathered so many centuries. Stark and grim, sentinels of the ages, they stood in their changeless circle, as they had stood in the early days of the world ere men had learned to subdue the earth.
Frances sat and gazed and gazed with a curious feeling of reverence upon that forgotten place of sacrifice.
“Isn’t it strange?” she whispered to herself. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
And then she turned to the man by her side. “It reminds me of the days when you were a Roman gladiator and I was one of the slaves who sprinkled the saw-dust in the arena.”
He looked at her with his brooding eyes. “So you were a slave?” he said.
“I have always been one,” she answered, with a quizzical lifting of the brows.
“You were not intended for a slave,” he said.
She smiled a little. “May I get down? I should like to walk here.”
“Are you strong enough?” he said.
“Of course I am strong enough. When I am tired, I will curl up and sleep in the sunshine.”