y soul. And when I no longer may look upon thee mine eyes
will become blind with the infinity of their longing, and when I no
longer can feel thy touch, my heart will become as a stone."

A quick blush rose to her cheeks.

"That time shall never come, Taurus Antinor," she said so softly that
her words hardly reached his ears. "Have I not told thee that there are
those in my house who are ready to acclaim thee as the Caesar?... acting
upon my kinsman's own pronouncement yesterday ... they have come to me
... to beg me to make the choice which will place the imperium in the
hands of the man most worthy to wield it.... My choice is made, O
praefect!... Look into mine eyes, my dear lord, and read what they
express."

He looked up just as she bade him, and as he did so there fell on him
from her blue eyes such a look of love, that with a wild cry of
passionate joy he stretched out his arms and closed them around her.

"Love is not death, dear lord," she murmured, even as the tears gathered
in her eyes and made them shine like stars.

The moment was too supreme for words. Even the whisper, "I love thee!"
died upon their lips. He held her close to him, her dear head resting on
his shoulder, his hand upon her cheek, the perfume of her loveliness
mounting to his nostrils and making his senses reel with its exquisite
fragrance.

This one great moment was love's, and it was love's alone. Each had
forgotten strife, rebellion, ambition, the fugitive Caesar and the
murmuring people. Each only remembered the other and the perfect flavour
of that first lingering kiss.

Whatever life held for them hereafter, glory or shame, joy or regret,
this moment remained unspoiled, perfect in its esctasy, the world but a
dream, love the only reality.

Overhead the thunder rolled at intervals, dull and distant now, with
occasional flashes of vivid lightning which lit up Dea's golden hair and
the round, bare shoulder which emerged above the tunic. Her face was in
shadow; she lay against his heart like a young bird that has found its
nest.

Then he awoke from this ecstasy.

"The Caesar?" he said wildly, "where is the Caesar?"

"Near me now, dear Lord," she murmured looking up at him with a smile;
"my head is on his shoulder and I can hear the beating of his heart."

"The Caesar, Augusta," he said more insistently, and now he held her away
from him, her two hands still in his and held against his breast, but
she at an arm's length from h