the memory
of another day, happier, but oh! so bitterly regretted, came to her
mind,--"so surely as Orcus sends not the dead back from Acheron. Now
go."

He drew back, step by step, still facing her, longing to rebel, yet not
daring, cringing, skulking like a whipped cur. He reached the end of
the path; the entrance to the garden was behind him. He raised his
clenched hand to the heavens. "Ah, Melkarth!" burst from his lips,
and, turning, he plunged into the house, running.

Marcia listened eagerly to the fall of his sandals. They died away,
and the distant door creaked. Tears filled her eyes, and, shivering in
every muscle, she sank down upon the seat and buried her face in her
hands.

X.

MELKARTH.

Two moons had waxed and waned; Pacuvius Calavius had dined in his
winter triclinium for the first time this year, and Marcia was
rejoicing at the omen. She watched her host, as he lay back upon his
couch, and noted with pity the change that had come over him. When he
had greeted her coming, he had seemed not very much past middle age--a
brisk man, well preserved in mind and body. Now he was old--very
old--and the pallor and wrinkles were prominent through the flush of
the wine and the paint with which he strove to hide them. Even his
ambition was dead; he hardly sought the Senate House, but, stopping
within doors, maundered querulously and unceasingly to Marcia, to his
servants, to any one who would listen to him, of the blunders that were
being made, and of how war and negotiations should be conducted,
speaking always as a man for whom such things had no personal interest.
The diadem of Italy that had once blinded his eyes to good faith and
oaths of alliance, had melted away in the flames of the pyre that
consumed his son. As for Marcia, she had come to regard him with
something of that indulgent consideration which we feel for the aged
and infirm. His former attitude toward herself, which had filled her
with contempt and disgust, had vanished utterly, and, in its place, was
a fatherly kindness that had now no nearer object upon which to lavish
itself. As for the household, what little discipline had once
pertained, was gone. The slaves were no longer punished, and,
slavelike, they presumed upon their master's gentleness or
indifference. They pilfered right and left; they neglected duties and
orders; until, at last, a large measure of the care of her host and his
house devolved upon Marcia alo