The words died on her lips. The shout of "Death to the Cæsar! Death!" had come distinctly from afar. He jumped to his feet, and she saw that his face now looked careworn and anxious.
"Where is the Cæsar?" he asked hurriedly.
"He is a fugitive, I tell thee. The rabble fired his palace to force him to come out of it and face them. But he ran away through the secret passage which leads through the house of Germanicus to mine."
"He is here then?"
"No! He grovelled at my feet and begged me to hide him ... here ... in my private chamber where he thought he would be safe ... but I would not let him come for I thought thee helpless in thy bed, and feared that he would kill thee."
"Great God!"
"Nay! why shouldst thou call to thy god on behalf of a tyrant and a coward," she said excitedly; "thou shouldst have seen that man cowering at my feet like a beaten dog. I could have spurned him with my foot, as I would a cur."
"The Cæsar, Augusta, the Cæsar!"
"Aye!" she rejoined firmly, "the Cæsar, my kinsman! Were he not that, I would have rushed to my door and called to the people, and would have handed over unto them that miserable bundle of rags which stood for the majesty of Cæsar!"
"And I lay a helpless log," he rejoined bitterly, "while the destinies of Rome lay in thy hands."