“Thou wilt love?”
“I will not deny Him who died for me!”
“Mercia, if thy God exists He made us both, the one for the other. Hearken! I am rich beyond all riches. I have power, skill, strength; with these the world would be my slave, my vassal. Nero is hated, loathed—is tottering on his throne. I have friends in plenty who would help me—the throne of Cæsar might be mine—and thou shalt share it with me if thou wilt but live. The crown of an Empress shall deck that lovely head if thou wilt but live—only consent to live!”
“My crown is not of earth, Marcus; it awaits me there.”
“I cannot part from thee and live, Mercia! I have, to save thy precious life, argued and spoken against thy faith, thy God, but to speak truth to thee, I have been sorely troubled since I first saw thee. Strange yearnings of the spirit come in the lonely watches of the night; I battle with them, but they will not yield. I tremble with strange fears, strange thoughts, strange hopes. If thy faith be true, what is this world?—a little tarrying-place, a tiny bridge between two vast eternities, that from which we have traveled, that towards which we go. Oh, but to know! How can I know, Mercia? Teach me how to know!”
“Look at the Cross, and pray, ‘Help Thou my unbelief.’ Give up all that thou hast, and follow Him!”
“Would He welcome even me?”
“Yea, even thee, Marcus.”
Now there sounded on their ears another call from the trumpets. The brazen doors slid back, the guards entered, followed this time by Tigellinus.
“Prefect, the hour has come. Cæsar would have this maid’s decision. Doth she renounce Christus and live, or cling to him and die?”