ce her whole person, that even she--the
proud Augusta, the woman--exacting through the very magnitude of her
love--was satisfied.

"Then, dear lord, I entreat thee," she said, "for one brief moment only
think of naught but of our love. Let me rest in thine arms but that one
moment longer, and remember the while that with my love, the world
conquered will lie at thy feet."

She drew closer to him and once more lay against his breast. She was
tender and clinging now, no longer the Augusta, the unapproachable
princess but just a woman, loving and submissive, proud to give and
proud to abdicate.

To him this was the torturing moment. He knew what she desired and what
weapons she could wield wherewith to subdue his will. The battle he
fought with himself just then was but a precursor of the fiercer one
which anon he would have to fight against her. The rending of his soul
was expressed in every line of his face, which once more now looked
haggard and harsh; Dea Flavia saw it all. She saw how he suffered,
whilst with every passing second the inward struggle became more
difficult and fierce; his breath came and went with feverish rapidity,
the frown across his brow deepened visibly, and for a while his arms
were rigid and his fists clenched, even though she clung to him, her
frail body against his, her head upon his breast.

"Wouldst lose the world and lose me?" she murmured. "The world is at thy
feet, and I love thee."

A moan escaped him as that of a wounded creature in pain; the rigidity
of his arms relaxed and wildly now he was pressing her closer to him.

"I love thee," he murmured, "I love thee. The world is well lost to me
now that I have held thee in mine arms."

"The world, dear lord," she whispered, "is not lost, rather is it won.
My hand in thine, we'll make that world a happier and brighter one.
Power is thine ... thou art the Caesar...."

"Hush--sh--sh, idol of my soul! Do not speak of that ... not now ...
when my arms are round thee and the whole world has vanished from my
ken. Let me live in my dream just a brief moment longer; let me forget
all save my love for thee. It hath burned my soul for an eternity
meseems, for I have only lived since that hour when first I heard thy
voice ... in the Forum ... dost remember?... when I knelt at thy feet
and tied the strings of thy shoe."

"I remember!"

"And I loved thee from that hour. I loved thee for thy purity and
because thou art exquisitely beautiful an