"And you?" asked Sophronia.

"I shall stay here."

"And the games in the circus to-morrow?"

"Will be closed with me."

"Never!" said Sophronia, filled with lofty self-sacrifice.

"Why never? Those who hate me love you, and how gladly I would give years of my life to win a smile from their lips. If one of us must die, why should it be you, whose loss will plunge them into despair? Why not rather I, whose death they would bless? You will preserve a happy life for others; I shall cast from me a wretched one."

Sophronia clasped her sister's hands in both her own, and gazed with her pure eyes deep into Glyceria's troubled, sorrowful ones.

"You were the woman who, on the night I was captured, offered me her horse to escape?"

"Why do you speak of that?"

"Do you remember my answer?"