‘In Thyatira?’ said the girl; then gazing at him long and earnestly, she flung up her arms and exclaimed, ‘Can this be Onesimus?’
‘Do you know my name, lady?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Look at me,’ she answered. ‘It is twelve years since we met, but do you not recall—’
He fixed his eyes on her face and said in a troubled voice, ‘You are like Eunice, the daughter of my mother’s sister, with whom I was brought up as a child.’
‘Hush!’ she exclaimed; ‘step aside for a moment, Onesimus; I am Eunice, but for many years I have not been known by that name. When the fortunes of our house were ruined I too was sold as a slave with you to the purple factory of Lydia; but a freedman of the Emperor Claudius saw me and brought me to wait upon the Empress Messalina. He thought my name too fine, and changed it to Acte.’
‘Acte?’ burst out Onesimus; ‘then you are,’—he broke off and remained silent.
A blush suffused the girl’s cheek. ‘A slave,’ she said, ‘is forced to do her master’s bidding. Nero loved me sincerely, and I loved him, and I was ignorant and very young. But it is past. The affections of Nero are turned elsewhere; yet none can say that I have ever used my influence for any but kind ends.’
‘I reproached you not, Acte,’ said Onesimus, ‘if I must call you by your new name. I have far too much wherewith to reproach myself.’
‘Meet me here,’ said Acte, ‘two hours after noon, and you shall tell me all your story, and how I can help you.’
Onesimus came that afternoon. He and Acte had been like brother and sister in the house at Thyatira in happier days, and he told her his sad story and all his sufferings, and how he had been rescued by the compassion of Pudens, and how, even in the house of Pudens, he had not shown himself worthy of the centurion’s kindness, and how he loved Junia—and all his fears and all his hopes.