g
against him.

Burdened by these reflections, AEnone slowly passed from her room into
the antechamber. Lifting her eyes, she there saw her husband standing at
the window, and, at the distance of a pace or two from him, a female
figure. It was that of a girl of about eighteen years, small, light, and
graceful. Her costume, though not in form such as belonged to the
freeborn women of Rome, was yet far superior in richness of material to
that usually worn by persons of low degree, and was fashioned with a
taste which could not fail to assist the display of her graceful
perfection of form, indicated in part by the rounded lines of the
uncovered neck and arms. As AEnone entered the room, Sergius advanced,
and, taking her by the hand, said:

'Yonder is a new slave for you--the present about which I yesterday
spoke. I trust it will prove that during my absence I was not unmindful
of you. It was at Samos that I obtained her. There, you may remember, we
tarried, after taking the town and burning part of the fleet.'

Samos! Where had AEnone heard that place mentioned? Searching into the
recesses of her memory, it at last flashed upon her. Was it not from
Samos that he--Cleotos--had come? And was it fate that forced the
recollection of him ever upon her? She turned pale, but by a violent
effort succeeded in maintaining her self-possession and looking up with
a smile of apparent interest upon her husband as he spoke.

'She had nearly fallen the prey of one of the common soldiers,' he
continued; 'but I, with a few pieces of gold, rescued her from him,
picturing to myself the gratification you would feel at being so fitly
attended. And that you might the better appreciate the gift, I have
retained her till to-day before showing her to you, in order that you
might first see her recovered from the toil of travel and in all her
recovered beauty. A rare beauty, indeed, but of a kind so different from
thine that your own will be heightened by the contrast rather than
diminished. How many sestertia I have been offered for her, how many
high officers of my forces have desired to obtain her for service upon
their own wives, I cannot now remember. But I have refused and resisted
all, for I would that you should be known throughout all Rome by the
beauty of those in waiting about you, even as you are now known by your
own beauty. Pray, accept of her, therefore, as your attendant and
companion, for it would sorely disappoint me were you to