ysterious than any sage could propound lay
hidden in the words of the letter which she had just read. The man who
had penned that letter had poured out his heart in it, and it was not a
heart that was void of pity or of love. It brimmed over with pity, it
was bruised with the intensity of love: but, crushed and broken though
it was, it did not murmur, it only endured.

Dea Flavia looked down upon the small object which to Taurus Antinor had
been an emblem of that god whom he worshipped and who had been man and
had died a shameful death.

Who was this god whom Taurus Antinor worshipped? for whose sake and at
whose bidding he was content to give up all the superheights of ambition
to which a Roman patrician could aspire? Who was this god? and what had
he done that a man like Taurus Antinor--a man filled with all a man's
strength and all a man's heroism, a man worshipped of the people and
glorified by an entire nation--should thus give up the lordship of Rome
in order to do him service? that he should give it up, too, without a
murmur, content to offer this final and absolute sacrifice.

"Think not of me as unhappy. My Lord has called me and I, His servant am
bound to follow."

Thus had the man written in loneliness and in peace after the sacrifice
had been accomplished, even after she--the Augusta--had, with
love-filled heart and generous hands, offered him everything that man
could desire on this earth. He had written it in loneliness and in
peace, having given up the world to follow his God.

Who was this god? and what had he done that his power over Taurus
Antinor's heart was greater than her own?

Yesterday she had cursed him loudly and called him cruel and unjust,
four days ago she had defied him and now he had conquered. Taurus
Antinor had obeyed him and she who loved him and whom he loved was left
desolate.

For this she never doubted: he loved her, that she knew. She was no
child now! The last four days had made a woman of her: in the past four
days she had tasted of and witnessed every passion that rends a human
heart, love, ambition, cruelty, hatred! She had seen them all! seen
through passion men brought down to a level lower than the beasts, and
through passion a man become equal to a god. No! she was no longer a
child, she was a woman now, and there was much that if she did not
understand she at least could not doubt. The man whom she loved, loved
her with an intensity at least equal to that which eve