nt from excess of happiness, and began
again to speak, as his eyes were opened gradually to this,--that she
was different utterly from Roman women, and resembled Pomponia alone.
Besides, he could not explain this to her clearly, for he could not
define his feeling,--that beauty of a new kind altogether was coming
to the world in her, such beauty as had not been in it thus far; beauty
which is not merely a statue, but a spirit. He told her something,
however, which filled her with delight,--that he loved her just because
she had fled from him, and that she would be sacred to him at his
hearth. Then, seizing her hand, he could not continue; he merely gazed
on her with rapture as on his life's happiness which he had won, and
repeated her name, as if to assure himself that he had found her and was
near her.

"Oh, Lygia, Lygia!"

At last he inquired what had taken place in her mind, and she confessed
that she had loved him while in the house of Aulus, and that if he had
taken her back to them from the Palatine she would have told them of her
love and tried to soften their anger against him.

"I swear to thee," said Vinicius, "that it had not even risen in my mind
to take thee from Aulus. Petronius will tell thee sometime that I told
him then how I loved and wished to marry thee. 'Let her anoint my door
with wolf fat, and let her sit at my hearth,' said I to him. But he
ridiculed me, and gave Caesar the idea of demanding thee as a hostage and
giving thee to me. How often in my sorrow have I cursed him; but
perhaps fate ordained thus, for otherwise I should not have known the
Christians, and should not have understood thee."

"Believe me, Marcus," replied Lygia, "it was Christ who led thee to
Himself by design."

Vinicius raised his head with a certain astonishment.

"True," answered he, with animation. "Everything fixed itself so
marvellously that in seeking thee I met the Christians. In Ostrianum I
listened to the Apostle with wonder, for I had never heard such words.
And there thou didst pray for me?"

"I did," answered Lygia.

They passed near the summer-house covered with thick ivy, and approached
the place where Ursus, after stifling Croton, threw himself upon
Vinicius.

"Here," said the young man, "I should have perished but for thee."

"Do not mention that," answered Lygia, "and do not speak of it to
Ursus."

"Could I be revenged on him for defending thee? Had he been a slave, I
should have given him fre