readed night was coming on. Would he moan in his sleep again,
without her quieting hand upon his face, or wake from dreams of her
to loneliness? She rose impetuously and looked up through the narrow
window. The sky was filled with the brightness of the April sunset.
Of pain she was no longer afraid. But she was afraid to go on fighting
with nothing to justify the cost of her successive battles or to
glorify their result. Against the sunset sky rose the Capitol.
Burnished gold had been laid upon its austere contours. Strength was
aflame with glory. She never knew how or why, but suddenly an
answering flame leaped within her. In that majestic temple dwelt the
omnipotent gods of her country. Why should all her prayers be said
to the Penates on her hearth? What did her country need, save, in
manifold forms, which obliterated the barriers of sex, the sacrifice
of self, the performance of duty, the choice of courage? The feverish
talk of women about their independence had failed to hold her
attention. Now a mightier voice, borne from the graves of the dead,
trumpeted from the lives of the living, called to her, above the
warring of her will with sorrow, to be a Roman citizen. She had
neither arms nor counsels to give to her country. She could not even
give sons born of her body, taught of her spirit. She was a woman
alone, she was growing old, she was ungifted. She would be nothing
but a private in the ranks, an obscure workman among master builders.
But she could offer her victory over herself, and ask her country
to take back and use a character hewn and shaped in accordance with
its traditions. Her husband's citizenship had become a legal fable.
She would take it and weld it with her own, and, content never to
know the outcome, lay them both together upon the altar of Rome's
immortal Spirit.

The new moon hung in the still radiant west. On a moonlit night she
had fallen by the ashes of her hearth and prayed in futile agony to
the gods of her home. Now she stood erect and looked out upon the
city and with a solemn faith prayed to the greater gods. Later she
slept peacefully, for the first time in fifteen months, as one whose
taskmaster has turned comrade.

In the morning her uncle, who had been in Falerii for a few weeks,
came to see her. He looked keenly into her eyes as she hastened across
the wide room to greet him. Then his own eyes flashed and with a sudden
glad movement he bent and kissed her hands. "Heart of my hea