tramp of
lictors and soldiers who kept watch over it, under arms.

In a side street the praetor met the tailor he had knocked down, the
sausage-maker, and other ringleaders of the attack on the Israelite's
house. They were being led away prisoners before the night magistrates.
Verus would have set them at liberty with all his heart, but he knew that
the Emperor would enquire next morning what had been done to the rioters,
and so he forbore. At any other time he would certainly have sent them
home unpunished, but just now he was dominated by a wish that was more
dominant than his good nature or his facile impulses.

CHAPTER VII.

When he reached the Caesareum the high-chamberlain was waiting to conduct
him to Sabina who desired to speak with him notwithstanding the lateness
of the hour, and when Verus entered the presence of his patroness, he
found her in the greatest excitement. She was not reclining as usual on
her pillows but was pacing her room with strides of very unfeminine
length.

"It is well that you have come!" she exclaimed to the praetor. "Lentulus
insists that he has seen Mastor the slave, and Balbilla declares--but it
is impossible!"

"You think that Caesar is here?" asked Verus.

"Did they tell you so too?"

"No. I do not linger to talk when you require my presence and there is
something important to be told just now then--but you must not be
alarmed."

"No useless speeches!"

"Just now I met, in his own person--"

"Who?"

"Hadrian."

"You are not mistaken, you are sure you saw him?"

"With these eyes."

"Abominable, unworthy, disgraceful!" cried Sabina, so loudly and
violently that she was startled at the shrill tones of her own voice. Her
tall thin figure quivered with excitement, and to any one else she would
have appeared in the highest degree graceless, unwomanly, and repulsive:
but Verus had been accustomed from his childhood to see her with kinder
eyes than other men, and it grieved him.

There are women who remind us of fading flowers, extinguished lights or
vanishing shades, and they are not the least attractive of their sex: but
the large-boned, stiff and meagre Sabina had none of the yielding and
tender grace of these gentle creatures. Her feeble health, which was very
evident, became her particularly ill when, as at this moment, the harsh
acrimony of her embittered soul came to light with hideous plainness.

She was deeply indignant at the affront her husband had put