And her head fell back against Dea Flavia's arm; her eyes, now veiled by the film of death gazed, sightless, up at the dome of blue.
"Menecreta!" cried Dea Flavia, horror-stricken as she felt the feeble body stiffening against her with the approaching rigidity of death.
"Mother!" echoed Nola, striving to smother her terror as she threw herself on her knees.
"The woman is dead," said the praefect quietly.
CHAPTER VI
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."—Revelations xxii. 13.
And after that silence and peace.
Silence save for the moanings of the child Nola, who in a passionate outburst of grief had thrown herself on the body of her mother.