After this there were other delays at gates still in the hands of their own people, which one by one were unbolted to them.

Thus it was not far from daylight when at length they passed over a narrow bridge that spanned some ravine and through massive doors into a vast dim place which, as Miriam gathered from the talk of her captors, was the inner enclosure of the Temple.

Here, at the command of that captain who had ordered her to be slain, she was thrust into a small cell in one of the cloisters.

Then the men in charge of her locked the door and went away.
Sinking exhausted to the floor, Miriam tried to sleep, but could not, for her brain seemed to be on fire.

Whenever she shut her eyes there sprang up before them visions of some dreadful scene which she had witnessed, while in her ears echoed now the shouts of the victors, now the pitiful cry of the dying, and now again the voice of the wounded Marcus calling her "Most Beloved." Was this indeed so, she wondered?
Was it possible that he had not forgotten her during those years of separation when there must have been so many lovely ladies striving to win him, the rich, high-placed Roman lord, to be their lover or their husband?
She did not know, she could not tell: perhaps, in such a plight, he would have called any woman who came to save him his Most Beloved, yes, even old Nehushta, and even then and there she smiled a little at the thought.