“No, I have not seen him. I have been up on the Market-place, not to the Temple. I visited the young Messala.”
A certain change in his voice attracted the mother’s attention. A presentiment quickened the beating of her heart; the fan became motionless again.
“The Messala!” she said. “What could he say to so trouble you?”
“He is very much changed.”
“You mean he has come back a Roman.”
“Yes.”
“Roman!” she continued, half to herself. “To all the world the word means master. How long has he been away?”
“Five years.”
She raised her head, and looked off into the night.
“The airs of the Via Sacra are well enough in the streets of the Egyptian and in Babylon; but in Jerusalem—our Jerusalem—the covenant abides.”