"Good mistress, I cannot tell you."
"Why, dear Cyran?"
"Because—" the slave-girl hesitated; then timidly and with trembling lips she whispered, "because, dear mistress, I—I love you." She seemed to bend beneath her burden and, knelt beside her mistress and wept.
"Go—please go," said Appius, turning to Cyran. "You irritate me, and
I cannot understand you."
But Arria divined the secret of the poor slave-girl, and pitied her.
Cyran rose and left them.
"The great love may come to you, and then you shall understand," said
Arria to Appius.
"The great madness!" her brother exclaimed. "I like not these Jewish cattle. The gods forgive me that we have fallen among them. With a Jew for a pilot we should make a landing in Hades."
Something in his manner alarmed the girl.
"What mean you?" she inquired.