"You dreamt of me?" he said in a low voice. He half raised his arms and came nearer; but she held up one hand in the old imperious manner.
"If you please, I have not sent for you that you should grow presumptuous, because I was unmaidenly enough to dream of so badly behaved a person as yourself. It—it was because it—I thought you should know, so that the omen might be expiated."
Sergius had halted and was standing still. His lip curled slightly.
"I dreamt," she went on, after a short pause, "that there was a wide plain with mountains about it and a river running through; and it was all heaped up with dead men—thousands upon thousands—stripped of arms and clothing, and the air was gray with vultures, and the wolves and foxes were calling to each other back among the hills. And I was very sad and walked daintily so that my sandals and gown might not be splashed with the blood that curdled in pools all about. Suddenly I came to a heap of slain whereon you were lying, with a long javelin through your body. So I screamed and awoke—"
"Surely, then, you felt sorrow," cried Sergius, who had followed the narrative with deep interest, but who seemed to consider nothing of it save the concern she had shown at his death.
"I—I," she began; and then, as if angry with herself at the betrayal of feeling and of her embarrassment, she burst out; "I did not send, foolish one, that you should consider me. Look rather to yourself."
But Sergius was full of the joy of his own thoughts.
"That I shall do, my Marcia, by setting my mind upon things that are better than myself—the Republic—you—"
"Ah, but the omen?"
"I shall put it aside together with the other: that you have called me back from the march; and I shall consider both well expiated by the knowledge that I am not as nothing to you."