le chair with wolf heads carved on the
arms, and her face had grown grave and thoughtful.

"It was to tell you a dream--a dream of you that I had last night."

Her cheek flushed, and Sergius' eyes sparkled.

"You dreamt of _me_?" he said in a low voice. He half raised his arms
and came nearer; but she held up one hand in the old imperious manner.

"If you please, I have not sent for you that you should grow
presumptuous, because I was unmaidenly enough to dream of so badly
behaved a person as yourself. It--it was because it--I thought you
should know, so that the omen might be expiated."

Sergius had halted and was standing still. His lip curled slightly.

"I dreamt," she went on, after a short pause, "that there was a wide
plain with mountains about it and a river running through; and it was
all heaped up with dead men--thousands upon thousands--stripped of arms
and clothing, and the air was gray with vultures, and the wolves and
foxes were calling to each other back among the hills. And I was very
sad and walked daintily so that my sandals and gown might not be
splashed with the blood that curdled in pools all about. Suddenly I
came to a heap of slain whereon _you_ were lying, with a long javelin
through your body. So I screamed and awoke--"

"Surely, then, you felt sorrow," cried Sergius, who had followed the
narrative with deep interest, but who seemed to consider nothing of it
save the concern she had shown at his death.

"I--I," she began; and then, as if angry with herself at the betrayal
of feeling and of her embarrassment, she burst out; "I did not send,
foolish one, that you should consider _me_. Look rather to yourself."

But Sergius was full of the joy of his own thoughts.

"That I shall do, my Marcia, by setting my mind upon things that are
better than myself--the Republic--you--"

"Ah, but the omen?"

"I shall put it aside together with the other: that you have called me
back from the march; and I shall consider both well expiated by the
knowledge that I am not as nothing to you."

Her face grew pale, and she half rose from the chair.

"Truly, I did not think about calling you back. It is terrible--all
this--and it is my doing--"

"Then, if you wish, I shall lay it up against you," cried he, gayly,
"unless you promise to be Caia in my house--"

"You are unfair to press me now and by such means."

"But it must be now," exclaimed the young man, springing forward and
trying to catc