t Marius's
eyes followed her until the curtains fell behind her, and read the look
therein.

With her exit, Eudemius all at once lost his composure. He sprang from
his place at the table and took to striding up and down the room.
Unexpectedly he stopped before Marius.

"If there be truth in this," he said, and his voice shook with rising
fury, "I'll find the man who hath entered my gates by night, and for
what damage he has wrought I will make him pay tenfold with living flesh
and blood. Marcus was there, thou sayest; he will know. And if he will
not tell--if he thinks to shield him--"

He broke off with a quick intake of breath, and put a hand to his side.
A spasm of pain crossed his pale face and distorted it. "Come back, thou
knave, while I have sense to question!" he muttered, and dropped into
the nearest seat, and sat there, with head bent forward and hands
clutching claw-like the arms of the chair.

Marcus entered, alone. Eudemius raised his head.

"Didst thou--" he began, and stopped. But he gathered himself together,
and tried again.

"Didst thou see him who entered the women's place by stealth to hold
speech with thy mistress?"

Marcus nodded eagerly. His voice was drowned in Eudemius's exclamation
of fury.

"So the fool spake truth when I thought she raved! Not so much fool
after all, perhaps, but better fool than--" He checked himself on the
word. "Who is the man?" Again his face grew distorted; on the hands that
gripped his chair the veins stood out dark and swollen. Pain made him
brutal; he glared at Marcus with the bloodshot eyes of a goaded beast.
Marcus, with a hoarse cry, bowed himself to the ground, his hands before
his face. Eudemius brought his fist down on the arm of his chair.

"Who is the man? Answer, slave, if thou wouldst keep the flesh on thy
living bones! Who is the man, and what hath been his work?"

Then Marcus raised himself, with outstretched hands, gesticulating
frantically. The effort he made to speak was fearful; his face became
congested, his eyes seemed starting from his head. And his voice was as
fearful, hoarse, bestial, with apish gibberings. But no words came; he
could only beat the air and cry out in impotent despair.

"The man is mad!" Marius exclaimed, staring.

Eudemius lifted himself half out of his chair. Beads of sweat stood
thick upon his forehead.

"Mad or sane, I'll have the truth from him!" he snarled. He caught the
dog-whip from the back of his chair a