at was already
claiming its sway.

X.

CONVALESCENCE.

The many weeks of hovering between life and death that followed these
days were a dense blank to Sergius. First, there was his injury, more
serious than he had imagined, and the fever that had followed it,
complicated again by the malaria of the marshes through which he had
journeyed in so vulnerable a plight. Then came other weeks of such
lassitude that he had neither power nor desire to learn of the world to
which he felt himself slowly returning, as did Aeneas from the realms
of Pluto. There were times when he had been vaguely conscious of
whisperings around his couch upon subjects that should have interested
him and did not. Was it his fault? or had everything become
commonplace and of no account?

At last there came a time of convalescence. His haggard face
frightened him when he looked at it in the bronze mirror; but the air
of the winter was fresh and keen, bringing health and life to the mind,
if not entirely to the body. So, lying one day in the entrance hall
and gazing out over the Forum below, he turned to Agathocles, who sat
close by.

"And now you shall tell me," he began, "of the things that have
happened while I have lain here, helpless as a bag of corn in the
granary, and of even less importance."

"You mistake, my master," replied the physician, quickly. "Surely you
must know that your condition has been a matter of deep anxiety to
many, both within and without your walls."

"Within, perhaps, yes," said Sergius, slowly. "I treat them well, and
such of them as do not get freedom by my will would doubtless find
harder masters in Sabinus and Camerinus. My sisters' husbands are
patricians of the old school. As for without,--am I not a man useless
in times of action?--well-nigh disgraced?--"

Agathocles hastened to interrupt:--

"Ah! my master, you do not know. Could you but see the crowd of
clients who have gathered at your door each morning, waiting for it to
creak upon the pivots, and, later in the day, such of your friends as
were not away with the army--ay," he continued, with a sharp glance at
the invalid, "and a pretty female slave who has come at each nightfall
and has questioned the doorkeeper."

The strong desire to hear of two things had come into Sergius' mind
while the physician was speaking. He must learn about this female
slave who had inquired so assiduously, and he must hear of the army,
the war, the Repu