igured.
The Emperor, who had never had either son or daughter of his own, found
nothing so intolerable as the presence of crying children. However he
endured the wailing and whimpering that surrounded him till he had
ascertained the condition of the man lying on the ground before him.

"He is dead," he said in a few minutes. "Cover his face, Master."

Arsinoe and the children broke out afresh, and Hadrian glanced down at
them with annoyance. When his eye fell on Arsinoe, whose costly robe,
merely pinned and slightly stitched together had come undone with the
vehemence of her movements and were hanging as flapping rags in tumbled
disorder, he was disgusted with the gaudy fluttering trumpery which
contrasted so painfully with the grief of the wearer, and turning his
back on the fair girl he quitted the chamber of misery.

Gabinius followed him with a hideous smirk. He had directed the Emperor's
attention to the mosaic pavement in the steward's room, and had
shamelessly accused Keraunus of having offered to sell him a work that
belonged to the palace, contrasting his conduct with his own rectitude.
Now the calumniated man was dead, and the truth could never come to
light; this was necessarily a satisfaction to the miserable man, but he
derived even greater pleasure from the reflection that Arsinoe could not
now fill the part of Roxana, and that consequently there was once more a
possibility that it might devolve on his daughter.

Hadrian walked on in front of him, silent and thoughtful. Gabinius
followed him into his writing-room, and there said with fulsome
smoothness:

"Ah, great Caesar, thus do the gods punish with a heavy hand the crimes
of the guilty."

Hadrian did not interrupt him, but he looked him keenly and enquiringly
in the face, and then said, gravely, but coolly:

"It seems to me, man, that I should do well to break off my connection
with you, and to give some other dealer the commissions which I proposed
to entrust to you."

"Caesar!" stammered Gabinius, "I really do not know--"

"But I do know," interrupted the Emperor. "You have attempted to mislead
me, and throw your own guilt on the shoulders of another."

"I--great Caesar? I have attempted--" began the Ligurian, while his
pinched features turned an ashy grey. "You accused the steward of a
dishonorable trick," replied Hadrian. "But I know men well, and I know
that no thief ever yet died of being called a scoundrel. It is only
undeserved disgr