an in Capua whom she could honour--upon whom
she could rely. Surely he would not desert her thus?--yes, truly, he
was _gone_.

Then she ran several steps in the direction he had taken, and called,
though she dared not call his name, until a female attendant came
hurrying to answer her.

"My lord, Perolla," said the girl, "had but just rushed out into the
street, as if possessed of a daimon. As for a strange slave, she had
observed no one; but if such there was, doubtless he had slipped by the
porter's boy--who was worthless."

Marcia groped her way to her sleeping apartment, harshly brushing aside
an offer of aid. Once alone, she threw herself down upon the couch and
burst into a torrent of moans and sobs.

The girl, who had followed hesitatingly, listened in the hallway,
nodding her head with conscious satisfaction. "And so the Roman women
loved, for all they were said to be so grand and stern. What a fool
this one was, though, to prefer the son to the father, who was much
richer, and who, being old, would doubtless realize the necessity of
being more generous."

And she went back to the slaves' apartments, laughing softly to herself.

VII.

"FREEDOM."

The morning air of the Seplasia reeked with perfumes, more, even, than
was its wont; for Carthaginian and Capuan revellers had been carousing
there, and several of the shops had been broken open. The gutters
streamed wine with which were mingled all the essences of India and
Asia. Flowers, withered and soaked with coarser odours than their own,
floated on the pools and drifted down the rivulets. Inert bodies,
drunk to repletion, lay scattered about, helpless, unable to drink
consciously, but absorbing the wasted liquor through every pore. A
dead citizen, his head crushed in by a single blow, sprawled hideously
in the middle of the street; while his murderer, a gigantic Gaul, was
embracing the corpse with maudlin affection and whispering in its ear
to arise and guide him back to camp. Those who passed, from time to
time, paused to join the soldier's comrades in laughter and rude jests
and suggestions of new methods of awakening his friend.

And now, down the street, extending from wall to wall, came a line of
young men, their faces flushed, their garments disordered or cast
aside, and their brows crowned with what had once been chaplets of
roses. Three or four courtesans, with gowns and tunics torn from their
white shoulders, were being dragg