see if there be prospect of a safe
return. Here, overseas, you get but an echo of the truth. Every day the
call goes out for more troops, and more."

Eudemius nodded thoughtfully.

"So the Third Legion is to be recalled from Gaul to Rome. It is what may
be expected, but I had not thought so soon. Their plans have been kept
well secret. AEtius will soon not have men enough for himself, not to
speak of sending over men to our assistance. I suppose your son goes
with them? It must be all of ten years since I saw him last."

"He hath changed," the father answered quietly. "Yes, he goes, and I go
with him. Come thou with us, friend! What has Rome done to thee that
thou shouldst not answer to her need? Now, if ever, is the time when her
sons must rally to her, for with all her faults--and she hath many--she
is still the mother of them all. I know well that it was within her
walls that thy trouble fell upon thee; but was she to blame for that?"

Eudemius's dark face never changed from its graven inscrutability, but
his thin hands clutched the scroll tighter and let it fall. Livinius
eyed him tenderly.

"Is not the old wound healing, even yet?" he asked with great
gentleness. For a moment silence fell. Then Eudemius, stooping from the
couch to pick up the fallen roll, said in his hard and even voice, as
though he discussed matters of small moment and everyday concern:

"Healing? Nay, how should it heal when each day fresh salt is rubbed
into it? Take a look at it now, if you will, for hereafter we'll let it
bide and rankle as it must. Tell me; have not your eyes seen changes,
mental as well as physical, concerning which your lips have not
questioned?"

"Changes? in you?" said Livinius, dropping into the other's more
distant tone. "Ay, that is true, and my heart aches to see them. That is
another reason why I urge your return to Rome. New scenes, new
faces--your life is broken, yet a broken pitcher may be mended."

"True," Eudemius admitted evenly. "But who expects it to hold water
again? Is it not rather placed upon the shelf and forgotten--if, indeed,
it be not flung upon the rubbish-heap?"

"But think of this--" Livinius persisted. Eudemius broke in.

"Ay, I have thought of this and that, and this is all it comes to!" he
said harshly. "That when I am gone, my name, blazoned in the annals of
Rome before great Caesar was, must dwindle out to nothing with a weak
girl. It came to me great, unstained, heavy with memorie