privacy. In the camp
before Ravenna there was but one voice, one hope, as to what should
follow when the city opened its gates, and the Goths themselves only
surrendered because they thought to be ruled by him. But for the
scruple of his conscience--and should not that have yielded to the
general good?'

'Is breach of faith so light a thing?' fell from Marcian, under his
breath.

'Nay,' answered the other, with drooping head, 'but he did break faith
with _us_. We had his promise; we saw him Emperor--'

'You should have won Antonina,' said Marcian, with a return to his
sarcastic humour. 'She must have mused long and anxiously, weighing the
purple against Theodora's fury. The Patrician's fidelity stood by his
wife's prudence.'

'The one blot upon his noble nature,' uttered Basil, with a sigh. 'His
one weakness. How,' he cried scornfully, 'can the conqueror of half the
world bend before such a woman?'

Fatigued already by the conversation, Maximus had lain back and closed
his eyes. Very soon the two young men received his permission to
withdraw, and, as they left the room, the physician entered. Obedient
to this counsellor the invalid gave several hours to repose, but midway
in the afternoon he again summoned his daughter, with whom he had a
long and agitating conversation. He besought Aurelia to cast off her
heretical religion, putting before her all the perils to which she
exposed herself, by abandonment of the true faith, in this world and
the next. His life was hurrying to its end; hour by hour he felt the
fever wasting what little strength remained to him; and when he was
gone who would protect her against the enmities to which religion and
avarice would expose her? Aurelia's resistance was sullen rather than
resolute; her countenance, her words, suggested that she was thinking
more of what it would cost her pride to become a penitent than of any
obstacle in conscience. At length she declared plainly that never would
she humiliate herself before her aunt Petronilla, who had offered her
no greeting and held scornfully apart. Here, as Maximus too well knew,
lay the great difficulty of the situation; these women hated each
other, and their hate would only be exasperated by Aurelia's
conversion. He spoke of the deacon Leander, now on his way
hither--begged Aurelia to listen to the reverend man, and gave solemn
assurance that, the moment she abjured her errors, he would place her
in a position of wealth and authori