before. I hardly had believed it.

'Tyrant!' I exclaimed, 'it cannot be! What, Aurelia?'

'Yes, Aurelia! Keep thy young blood cool, Piso. Yes, Aurelia! Ere I
struck at others, it behoved me to reprove my own. It was no easy
service, as you may guess, but it must be done. And not only was Aurelia
herself pertinaciously wedded to this fatal mischief, but she was
subduing the manly mind of Mucapor too, who, had he been successfully
wrought upon, were as good as dead to me and to Rome--and he is one whom
our legions cannot spare. We have Christians more than enough already in
our ranks: a Christian general was not to be borne. This was additional
matter of accusation against Aurelia, and made it right that she should
die. But she had her free choice of life, honor, rank, riches, and,
added to all, Mucapor, whose equal Rome does not hold, if she would but
take them. One word spoken and they were all her own; with no small
chance that she should one day be what Livia is. But that one word her
obstinate superstition would not let her speak.'

'No, Aurelian; there is that in the Christian superstition that always
forbids the uttering of that one word. Death to the Christian is but
another word for life. Apostacy is the true death. You have destroyed
the body of Aurelia, but her virtuous soul is already with God, and it
is you who have girded upon her brow a garland that shall never fade. Of
that much may you make your boast.'

'Piso, I bear with you, and shall; but there is no other in Rome who
might say so much.'

'Nay, nay, Aurelian, there I believe you better than you make yourself.
To him who is already the victim of the axe or the beasts do you never
deny the liberty of the tongue,--such as it then is.'

'Upon Piso, and he the husband of Julia, I can inflict no evil, nor
permit it done.'

'I would take shelter, Aurelian, neither behind my own name, my
father's, nor my wife's. I am a Christian--and such fate as may befall
the rest, I would share. Yet not willingly, for life and happiness are
dear to me as to you--and they are dear to all these innocent multitudes
whom you do now, in the exercise of despotic power, doom to a sudden and
abhorred death. Bethink yourself, Aurelian, before it be too late--'

'I have bethought myself of it all,' he replied--'and were the suffering
ten times more, and the blood to be poured out a thousand times more, I
would draw back not one step. The die has been cast; it has come up as