he has a fever."

Galen shook his head again.

"I will not have it said I poisoned him."

"Nonsense! Who knows that you mixed any poison?"

"Sextus, for one," Galen answered.

"Dea dia! There you are!" said Marcia. "I tell you, Pertinax, your
Sextus may prove to be another Livius! He has been as ubiquitous as the
plague. He knows everything. What if he should turn around and secure
himself and his estates by telling Commodus all he knows? It was you
who trusted Livius. Do you never learn by your mistakes?"

"We don't know yet what Livius has told," said Pertinax. "If he had
been tortured--but he was not. Commodus slew him with his own hand. I
know that is true; it was told me by the steward of the bedchamber, who
saw it, and who helped to dispose of the body. Commodus swore that such
a creeping spy as Livius, who could be true to nobody but scribbled,
scribbled, scribbled in a journal all the scandal he could learn in
order to betray anybody when it suited him, was unfit to live. I take
that for a sign that Commodus has had a change of heart. It was a manly
thing to slay that wretch."

"He will have a change of governors of Rome before the day dawns!"
Marcia retorted. "If it weren't that he might change his mistress at
the same time--"

"You would betray me--eh?" Pertinax smiled at her tolerantly.

"No," said Marcia, "I would let you have your own way and be executed!
You deserve it, Pertinax." Pertinax stood up and paced the floor with
hands behind him.

"I will have my own way. I will have it, Marcia!" he said, calmly,
coming to a stand in front of her. "He who plots against his emperor
may meet the like fate! If Commodus has no designs against me, then I
harbor none against him. I am not sure I am fitted to be Caesar. I
have none to rally to me, to rely on, except the praetorian guard, which
is a two-horned weapon; they could turn on me as easily and put a man
of their own choosing on the throne. And furthermore, I don't wish to
be Caesar. Glabrio, for instance, is a better man than I am for the
task. I will only consent to your desperate course, for the sake of
Rome, if you can prove to me that Commodus designs a wholesale massacre.
And even so, if your name and Galen's and mine are not on his
proscription list--if he only intends, that is, to punish Christians and
weaken the faction of that Carthaginian Severus, I will observe my oath
of loyalty. I will counsel moderation but-