Theocles touching the life and health of Lygia.

Danger threatened her no longer. Emaciated as she was in the dungeon
after prison fever, foul air and discomfort would have killed her; but
now she had the most tender care, and not only plenty, but luxury. At
command of Theocles they took her to the gardens of the villa after
two days; in these gardens she remained for hours. Vinicius decked her
litter with anemones, and especially with irises, to remind her of the
atrium of the house of Aulus. More than once, hidden in the shade of
spreading trees, they spoke of past sufferings and fears, each holding
the other's hand. Lygia said that Christ had conducted him through
suffering purposely to change his soul and raise it to Himself. Vinicius
felt that this was true, and that there was in him nothing of the former
patrician, who knew no law but his own desire. In those memories there
was nothing bitter, however. It seemed to both that whole years had gone
over their heads, and that the dreadful past lay far behind. At the same
time such a calmness possessed them as they had never known before. A
new life of immense happiness had come and taken them into itself. In
Rome Caesar might rage and fill the world with terror--they felt above
them a guardianship a hundred times mightier than his power, and had
no further fear of his rage or his malice, just as if for them he had
ceased to be the lord of life or death. Once, about sunset, the roar of
lions and other beasts reached them from distant vivaria. Formerly those
sounds filled Vinicius with fear because they were ominous; now he and
Lygia merely looked at each other and raised their eyes to the evening
twilight. At times Lygia, still very weak and unable to walk alone, fell
asleep in the quiet of the garden; he watched over her, and, looking
at her sleeping face, thought involuntarily that she was not that Lygia
whom he had met at the house of Aulus. In fact, imprisonment and disease
had to some extent quenched her beauty. When he saw her at the house of
Aulus, and later, when he went to Miriam's house to seize her, she was
as wonderful as a statue and also as a flower; now her face had become
almost transparent, her hands thin, her body reduced by disease,
her lips pale, and even her eyes seemed less blue than formerly. The
golden-haired Eunice who brought her flowers and rich stuffs to cover
her feet was a divinity of Cyprus in comparison. Petronius tried in vain
to find th