“Blessed be the New Faith, which not only hath healed the restlessness of my former state, but yielded this vision of beauty! Blessed be Serenus! and blessed above all be the God of all the earth!
“Can she ever love me, who am but the remnant of a wasted life? Nay, not so! Serenus says we have divinity within us, and the destiny of sons of God! What an inspiration! I knew not what I was, but now have found myself!
“Can I presume to win such a love as that of Rebecca? Peradventure, it hath been bestowed upon one of her own nation!
“Behold the wonder of Tarsus should the Vice Legate wed a Hebrew! A deposition from Cæsar! The contempt of the city! I care not! My life I give to the New Faith!
“Again that vision of loveliness cometh over me! Never before have I known love, but only its semblance! Naught but the New Faith could reveal and interpret its bliss!”
When Marcius finally resigned himself to the wooing of Morpheus, his visions were paradisiacal, beatific, elysian.
* * * * * * * * * *
A few evenings later Leander called his trusted slave Metopus to his presence.
“Dost thou know well Colurus, a servitor in the palace of Marcius?”
“I have known him long, my lord!”