that thou wilt be able to see him.”
“What has happened?” inquired Vinicius.
“The infant Augusta fell ill yesterday on a sudden. Cæsar and the august Poppæa are attending her, with physicians whom they have summoned from the whole city.”
This was an important event. When that daughter was born to him, Cæsar was simply wild from delight, and received her with extra humanum gaudium. Previously the senate had committed the womb of Poppæa to the gods with the utmost solemnity. A votive offering was made at Antium, where the delivery took place; splendid games were celebrated, and besides a temple was erected to the two Fortunes. Nero, unable to be moderate in anything, loved the infant beyond measure; to Poppæa the child was dear also, even for this, that it strengthened her position and made her influence irresistible.
The fate of the whole empire might depend on the health and life of the infant Augusta; but Vinicius was so occupied with himself, his own case and his love, that without paying attention to the news of the centurion he answered, “I only wish to see Acte.” And he passed in.
But Acte was occupied also near the child, and he had to wait a long time to see her. She came only about midday, with a face pale and wearied, which grew paler still at sight of Vinicius.
“Acte!” cried Vinicius, seizing her hand and drawing her to the middle of the atrium, “where is Lygia?”
“I wanted to ask thee touching that,” answered she, looking him in the eyes with reproach.
But though he had promised himself to inquire of her calmly, he pressed his head with his hands again, and said, with a face distorted by pain and anger, – “She is gone. She was taken from me on the way!”
After a while, however, he recovered, and thrusting his face up to Acte’s, said through his set teeth, – “Acte! If life be dear to thee, if thou wish not to cause misfortunes which thou are unable even to imagine, answer me truly. Did Cæsar take her?”
“Cæsar did not leave the palace yesterday.”
“By the shade of thy mother, by all the gods, is she not in the palace?”
“By the shade of my mother, Marcus, she is not in the palace, and Cæsar did not intercept her. The infant Augusta is ill since yesterday, and Nero has not left her cradle.”
Vinicius drew breath. That which had seemed the most terrible ceased to threaten him.
“Ah, then,” said he, sitting on the bench and clinching his fists, “Aulus intercepted her, and in that case woe to him!”
“Aulus Plautius was here this morning. He could not see me, for I was occupied with the child; but he inquired of Epaphroditus, and others of Cæsar’s servants, touching Lygia, and told them that he would come again to see me.”
“He wished to turn suspicion from himself. If he knew not what happened, he would have come to seek Lygia in my house.”
“He left a few words on a tablet, from which thou wilt see that, knowing Lygia to have been taken from his house by Cæsar, at thy request and that of Petronius, he expected that she would be sent to thee, and this morning early he was at thy house, where they told him what had happened.”
When she had said this, she went to the cubiculum and returned soon with the tablet which Aulus had left.
Vinicius read the tablet, and was silent; Acte seemed to read the thoughts on his gloomy face, for she said after a while, – “No, Marcus. That has happened which Lygia herself wished.”
“It was known to thee that she wished to flee!” burst out Vinicius.
“I knew that she would not become thy concubine.” And she looked at him with her misty eyes almost sternly.
“And thou, – what hast thou been all thy life?”
“I was a slave, first of all.”
But Vinicius did not cease to be enraged. Cæsar had given him Lygia; hence he had no need to inquire what she had been before. He would find her, even under the earth, and he would do what he liked with her. He would indeed! She should be his concubine. He would give command to flog her as often as he pleased. If she grew distasteful to him, he would give her to the lowest of his slaves, or he would command her to turn a handmill on his lands in Africa. He would seek her out now, and find her only to bend her, to trample on her, and conquer her.
And, growing more and more excited, he lost every sense of measure, to the degree that even Acte saw that he was promising more than he could execute; that he was talking because of pain and anger. She might have had even compassion on him, but his extravagance exhausted her patience, and at last she inquired why he had come to her.
Vinicius did not find an answer immediately. He had come to her because he wished to come, because he judged that she would give him information; but really he had come to Cæsar, and, not being able to see him, he came to her. Lygia, by fleeing, opposed the will of Cæsar; hence he would implore him to give an order to search for her throughout the city and the empire, even if it came to using for that purpose all the legions, and to ransacking in turn every house within Roman dominion. Petronius would support his prayer, and the search would begin from that day.
“Have a care,” answered Acte, “lest thou lose her forever the moment she is found, at command of Cæsar.”
Vinicius wrinkled his brows. “What does that mean?” inquired he.
“Listen to me, Marcus. Yesterday Lygia and I were in the gardens here, and we met Poppæa, with the infant Augusta, borne by an African woman, Lilith. In the evening the child fell ill, and Lilith insists that she was bewitched; that that foreign woman whom they met in the garden bewitched her. Should the child recover, they will forget this, but in the opposite case Poppæa will be the first to accuse Lygia of witchcraft, and wherever she is found there will be no rescue for her.”
A moment of silence followed; then Vinicius said, – “But perhaps she did bewitch her, and has bewitched me.”
“Lilith repeats that the child began to cry the moment she carried her past us. And really the child did begin to cry. It is certain that she was sick when they took her out of the garden. Marcus, seek for Lygia whenever it may please thee, but till the infant Augusta recovers, speak not of her to Cæsar, or thou wilt bring on her Poppæa’s vengeance. Her eyes have wept enough because of thee already, and may all the gods guard her poor head.”
“Dost thou love her, Acte?” inquired Vinicius, gloomily.
“Yes, I love her.” And tears glittered in the eyes of the freedwoman.
“Thou lovest her because she has not repaid thee with hatred, as she has me.”
Acte looked at him for a time as if hesitating, or as if wishing to learn if he spoke sincerely; then she said, – “O blind and passionate man – she loved thee.”
Vinicius sprang up under the influence of those words, as if possessed. “It is not true.”
She hated him. How could Acte know? Would Lygia make a confession to her after one day’s acquaintance? What love is that which prefers wandering, the disgrace of poverty, the uncertainty of to-morrow, or a shameful death even, to a wreath-bedecked house, in which a lover is waiting with a feast? It is better for him not to hear such things, for he is ready to go mad. He would not have given that girl for all Cæsar’s
