long this would last. The Empire
has been created at a great cost and cannot be preserved at a lesser
price. Insurrections have to be put down in the provinces, harmony
and efficiency have to be maintained in the capital. It takes harsh
courage, inflexible morals to do all that. Julia and with her Roman
society have defied Caesar's desires, just as her mother and her set
defied them ten years ago. Imagine the grief and despair of our old
Emperor! He must do something savage, drastic, irrevocable, to save
his state. My heart breaks for him, and yet I cannot help pitying
our imperial lady. With her light grace, her audacious humour, among
our stern old standards, she has often made me think of a Dryad moving
with rosy feet and gleaming shoulders in a black forest. All our
family, Fabia, have been like the trees. But perhaps Rome needs the
Dryads too. What is moral truth?" Fabia smiled suddenly. "Ovid would
say it is beauty," she said. "That is an old dispute between us."
Her face fell again. "He will be deeply distressed by this calamity.
Julia has been very gracious to him and he admires her even more than
he did her mother."

"When is he coming home?" Rufus asked. "I didn't expect him until
the day before the Ides," Fabia answered, "but I think now he may
come earlier. Caesar sent this morning to inquire where he was, and
perhaps some honour is going to be offered that will bring him back
immediately--a reading at the Palace, perhaps, or--but, uncle," she
exclaimed, "what is the matter? You have turned so white. You are
sick." She came near him with tender, anxious hands, and he gathered
them into his thin, old ones and drew her to him. "No, dear heart,"
he said. "I am not sick. For a moment fear outwitted me, a Fabian.
You must promise me not to be afraid, whatever happens. Is it cruel
to warn you of what may never come to you? But our days are troubled.
Jove's thunderstorm has broken upon us. Your husband is among the
lofty. It is only the obscure who are sure of escaping the lightning.
Send for me, if you need me. Remember whose blood is in you. I must
go--there may yet be time." He kissed her forehead hurriedly and was
gone.

Fabia never knew accurately what happened before the sun rose a
second time after this night. Afterwards she recognised the linked
hours as the bridge upon which she passed, without return, from joy
to pain, from youth to age, from ignorance to knowledge. But the
manner of the crossing never