“I have nothing to confess.”
“Confess that thou dost love.”
“Love! Whom?” she asked.
“Love me,” he replied with a wicked smile. “Confess that thou wishest to love me, as thou didst love the youths at the theatre. Prison life will soon lose its dulness if thou wilt love me.”
“I do not understand thy meaning!” said Psyche, white with fear.
“Cell life has dulled thy senses. Come, sit thou down. I ask not for thy respect, but for thy love.”
“Respect! Love! Art thou mad? Thou, the murderer of my brother; thou who art tormenting my parents; thou who wouldst thrust into thy dungeon an innocent man,—thou now comest before me, before one whose heart is torn and whose wounds are still fresh, and, villain that thou art, thou askest for love! Thou mayest be the emperor’s minister, but there is a limit to thy power! I detest thee! Leave me!”
“Hold, my pretty one! Thou sayest that I am powerful. Ay; that is true. My power can and will win thee. I have come here to love thee and I will not leave without that satisfaction.”
With intense fear the poor maiden threw herself on her knees and, looking up to heaven, cried in tragic accents: “O Mother of God, Celestial Rhea, hear the prayer from virgin lips! Deliver me from the power of this fiend! Grant me death rather than defilement! Protect thy persecuted child! Save! Oh, save!—”
“The gods hear no prayers in the Praetorian Camp,” jeered Sejanus, with an infernal smile on his lips.