Arsinoe’s heart beat so violently that she was incapable of saying a word of thanks to her kind protectress. “Step behind this palm-tree,” said the lady. Arsinoe obeyed; but she felt as though it was some outside volition, and not her own, that guided her to her hiding-place. She heard nothing of the first words spoken by the Roman lady and Doris. She only saw the dear old face of her Pollux’s mother, and in spite of her reddened eyes and the wrinkles which trouble had furrowed in her face, she could not tire of looking at it. It reminded her of the happiest days of her childhood, and she longed to rush forward and throw her arms round the neck of the kindly, good-hearted woman. Then she heard Julia say: “I have brought her to you. She is just as sweet and as maidenly and lovely as she was the first time we saw her in the theatre.”

“Where is she? Where is she?” asked Doris in a trembling voice.

Julia pointed to the palm, and was about to call Arsinoe, but the girl could no longer restrain her longing to fall on the neck of some one dear to her, for Pollux had come out of the door to see who had asked for his mother, and to see him and to fly to his breast with a cry of joy had been one and the same act to Arsinoe.

Julia gazed at the couple with moistened eyes, and when, after many kind words for old and young alike, she took leave of the happy group, she said:

“I will provide for your outfit my child, and this time I think you will wear it, not merely for one transient hour but through a long and happy life.”

Joyful singing sounded out that evening from Euphorion’s little home. Doris and her husband, and Pollux and Arsinoe, Diotima and Teuker, decked with garlands, reclined round the amphora which was wreathed with roses, drinking to pleasure and joy, to art and love, and to all the gifts of the present. The sweet bride’s long hair was once more plaited with handsome blue ribbons.

Three weeks after these events Hadrian was again in Alexandria. He kept aloof from all the festivals instituted in honor of the new god Antinous, and smiled incredulously when he was told that a new star had appeared in the sky, and that an oracle had declared it to be the soul of his lost favorite.

When Plutarch conducted the Emperor and his friends to see the Bacchus Antinous, which Pollux had completed in the clay, Hadrian was deeply struck and wished to know the name of the master who had executed this noble work of art. Not one of his companion’s had the courage to speak the name of Pollux in his presence; only Pontius ventured to come forward for his young friend. He related to Hadrian the hapless artist’s history and begged him to forgive him. The Emperor nodded his approval, and said:

“For the sake of this lost one he shall be forgiven.”

Pollux was brought into his presence, and Hadrian, holding out his hand said as he pressed the sculptor’s:

“The Immortals have bereft me of his love and faithfulness, but your art has preserved his beauty for me and for the world—”

Every city in the Empire vied in building temples and erecting statues to the new god, and Pollux, Arsinoe’s happy husband, was commissioned to execute statues and busts of Antinous for a hundred towns; but he refused most of the orders, and would send out no work as his own that he had not executed himself on a new conception. His master, Papias, returned to Alexandria, but he was received there by his fellow-artists with such insulting contempt, that in an evil hour he destroyed himself. Teuker lived to be the most famous gem-engraver of his time.

Soon after Selene’s martyrdom dame Hannah quitted Besa; the office of Superior of the Deaconesses at Alexandria was intrusted to her, and she exercised it with much blessing till an advanced age. Mary, the deformed girl, remained behind in the Nile-port, which under Hadrian was extended into the magnificent city of Antmoe. There were there two graves from which she could not bear to part.

Four years after Arsinoe’s marriage with Pollux, Hadrian called the young sculptor to Rome; he was there to execute the statue of the Emperor in a quadriga. This work was intended to crown and finish his mausoleum constructed by Pontius, and Pollux carried it out in so admirable a manner, that when it was ended, Hadrian said to him with a smile:

“Now you have earned the right to pronounce sentence of death on the works of other masters.” Euphorion’s son lived in honor and prosperity to see his children, the children of his faithful wife Arsinoe—who was greatly admired by the Tiber-grow up to be worthy citizens. They remained heathen; but the Christian love which Eumenes had taught Paulina’s foster-daughter was never forgotten, and she kept a kindly place for it in her heart and in her household. A few months before the young couple left Alexandria, Doris had peacefully gone to her last rest, and her husband died soon after her; the want of his faithful companion was the complaint he succumbed to.

On the shores of the Tiber, Pontius was still the sculptor’s friend. Balbilla and her husband gave their corrupt fellow-citizens the example of a worthy, faithful marriage on the old Roman pattern. The poetess’s bust had been completed by Pollux in Alexandria, and with all its tresses and little curls, it found favor in Balbilla’s eyes.

Verus was to have enjoyed the title of Caesar even during Hadrian’s lifetime, but after a long illness he died the first. Lucilla nursed him with unfailing devotion and enjoyed the longed-for monopoly of his attentions through a period of much suffering. It was on their son that in later years the purple devolved.

The predictions of the prefect Titianus were fulfilled, for the Emperor’s faults increased with years and the meaner side of his mind and nature came into sharper relief. Titianus and his wife led a retired life by lake Larius, far from the world, and both were baptized before they died. They never pined for the turmoil of a pleasure-seeking world or its dazzling show, for they had learnt to cherish in their own hearts all that is fairest in life.

It was the slave Mastor who brought to Titianus the news of the sovereign’s death. Hadrian had given him his freedom before he died and had left him a handsome legacy.

The prefect gave him a piece of land to farm and continued in friendly relations with his Christian neighbor and his pretty daughter, who grew up among her father’s co-religionists.

When Titianus had told his wife the melancholy news he added solemnly:

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