"Speak on, I hear you," said Marcus with a sigh.
So Cyril pleaded with him in the passion of one inspired, and as Marcus hearkened his heart was softened and his purpose turned.
"I knew it all before, I believed it all before," he said at length, "but I would not accept your baptism and become a member of your Church."
"Why not, son?"
"Because had I done so she would have thought and you might have thought, and perhaps I myself should have thought that I did it, as once I offered to do, to win her whom I desired above all things on earth. Now she is dead and it is otherwise. Shrive me, father, and do your office."
So there in the prison cell the bishop Cyril took water and baptised the Roman Marcus into the body of the Christian Church.
"What shall I do now?" Marcus asked as he rose from his knees. "Once Cæsar was my master, now you speak with the voice of Cæsar. Command me."
"I do not speak, Christ speaks. Listen. I am called by the Church to go to Alexandria in Egypt, whither I sail within three days. Will you who are exiled from Rome come with me? There I can find you work to do."
"I have said that you are Cæsar," answered Marcus. "Now it is sunset and I am free; accompany me to my house, I pray you, for there much business waits me in which I need counsel, who am overborne."
So presently the gates were opened as Titus had commanded, and they went forth, attended only by a guard of two men, walking unnoted through the streets to the palace in the Via Agrippa.
"There is the door," said the sergeant of the guard, pointing to the side entrance of the house. "Enter with your friend and, noble Marcus, fare you well."
So they went to the archway, and finding the door ajar, passed through and shut it behind them.
"For a house where there is much to steal this is ill guarded, son. In Rome an open gate ought to have a watchman," said Cyril as he groped his way through the darkness of the arch.
"My steward Stephanus should be at hand, for the jailer advised him of my coming--who never thought to come," began Marcus, then of a sudden stumbled heavily and was silent.
"What is it?" asked Cyril.
"By the feel one who is drunken--or dead. Some beggar, perhaps, who sleeps off his liquor here."
By now Cyril was through the archway and in the little courtyard beyond.