while an attendant held his horse close by and a little apart
from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the
dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak,
and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave.
Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her
class, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and especial favour. She
stood with her finger to her lips, her eyes great with the importance
of her mission.

"My mistress, the Lady Marcia, orders that you come and bid her
farewell," she whispered hurriedly.

Then she darted away among the crowd, before the young tribune could
make answer to an invitation so oddly worded.

His first impulse was to show the Lady Marcia that he was not to be
dismissed and sent for--much less ordered back at the caprice of a
girl. His next was to humour the whim of a child, and his third was to
obey humbly and thankfully, without a thought but of Marcia's beauty
and his own good fortune.

A word to his slave and another to his horse, whereat the former loosed
the bridle, and the latter knelt for his master. Then came a wild
gallop across the crest of the Viminal Hill, through the ill-omened
street where the wicked Tullia had driven over her father's corpse,
into the Forum, and out up the New Way to the house of Torquatus.

Throwing his rein to the porter, Sergius entered the court of the
atrium, vacant and resounding to the hurried tread of his cothurni.
Pausing for a moment and hesitating to penetrate farther into the
house, he became aware that the porter had followed him. Like most of
his class, he was a man considerably past middle life, and thus
considered suited to the comparative ease and responsibility of his
position. With a freedom and garrulity born of long service, he
began:--

"It was a word I was commanded to deliver to the most noble Sergius,
and I doubt not it would have been well and truly delivered, but for
his springing from his horse so quickly and rushing past me. It is
possible that I might have come to him sooner had he not left me to
take care of the animal, and it needed time to summon the groom, whose
duty such work is. Therefore--"

"By Hercules, man, give me the message! Do you think I can listen all
day to your gabbling?" cried the soldier, furious with impatience.

A faint laugh seemed to come from somewhere beyond the hallway.

"I was about to say, most n