most dastardly. He has written plainly enough
upon Apollinaris's face how much he values a brave soldier, the son of a
noble house. And you, Nemesianus--are you not also an Aurelius? You say
so; and yet, had he not chanced to let you care for your brother, you
would at this moment be wandering through the city like a mad dog,
biting all who crossed your path. Why do you not speak? Why not tell
me once more, Nemesianus, that a soldier must obey his commander
blindly?--And you, Apollinaris, will you dare still to assert that
the hand with which Caesar tore your face was guided only by righteous
indignation at an insult offered to an innocent maiden? Have you the
courage to excuse the murders by Caracalla of his own wife, and many
other noble women, by his anxiety for the safety of throne and state? I,
too, am a woman, and may hold up my head with the best; but what have I
to do with the state or with the throne? My eye met his, and from that
moment the fiend was my deadly enemy. A quick death at the hands of one
of his soldiers seemed too good for the woman he hated. Wild beasts were
to tear me to pieces before his eyes. Is that not sufficient for you?
Put every abomination together, everything unworthy of an honorable man
and abhorrent to the gods, and you have the man whom you so willingly
obey. I am only the wife of a citizen. But were I the widow of a
noble Aurelian and your mother--" Here Apollinaris, whose wounds were
beginning to burn again, broke in: "She would have counseled us to leave
revenge to the gods. He is Caesar!"

"He is a villain!" shrieked the matron--"the curse, the shame of
humanity, a damnable destroyer of peace and honor and life, such as
the world has never beheld before! To kill him would be to earn the
gratitude and blessing of the universe. And you, the scions of a noble
house, you, I say, prove that there still are men among so many
slaves! It is Rome herself who calls you through me--like her, a woman
maltreated and wounded to the heart's core--to bear arms in her service
till she gives you the signal for making an end of the dastardly blood
hound!"

The brothers gazed at one another pale and speechless, till at last
Nemesianus ventured to say "He deserves to die, we know, a thousand
deaths, but we are neither judges nor executioners. We can not do the
work of the assassin."

"No, lady, we can not," added Apollinaris, and shook his wounded head
energetically.

But the lady, nothing daunt