“I am not sure of any country being a haven, or a heaven,” she said. “Perhaps,” she added with a smile, “neither thou nor I may be ready for either yet. I may have to grow younger, and thou older. But we should be together, in the storm or in the calm. And I am well content.”
And Marius said to Ethne—
“How can I leave thee, who hast made earth dear to me and heaven real? who hast given me back faith in God and hope in man?”
“Thou art not leaving me,” Ethne replied. “We are in one path, in the steps of the pitiful, redeeming Lord. Thou wilt not despair of the slaves, however degraded, or of the Huns, however savage, for His sake.”
“For His sake and thine,” he replied, “for the sacred memory of thy captivity, and the dear first vision of thee beside the poor dying boy. Thou feelest then, beloved, that we are beginning our life together now?”
“Have we not begun?” she said. “Our paths may be divided for a little while, but we never.”
And so they parted.
For three long months, throughout the spring, the tidings of the ruin and ravage of the Huns on the northern shores of the Adriatic continued to reach the household on the Aventine. The great hordes were still swarming in the neighbourhood of unconquered Aquileia, whither they knew Marius had gone, and where the Roman garrison were making a stand worthy of old Rome.
One letter reached the mother from her son—
“I am once more in the house of the lady Digna, the young matron who, in her beauty and truth, seems to belong rather to the grand simplicity of the Republic than to any people or any period since. Close to her house is a high tower rising above the river, flowing crystal clear as if fresh from the blue hills which you see from the top. We cannot despair of saving the city, the virgin city, that has kept off so many enemies. The traditions of the ancient heroism seem to inspire its men and its women to-day. There are stories of days not so long gone, when the Emperor Julian floated wooden towers on rafts up the river to penetrate into the place where it had no walls. But the citizens set fire to the towers and baffled the Emperor. Impregnable this city of the north wind has been, as the north wind himself in the fastnesses of those rugged mountains. If we can but keep her impregnable this once more, who knows but the hordes of Attila may turn back again from Italy, as they did from Gaul after our battle on the plains of Châlons? There are rumours of discouragement and division in Attila’s camp. The ancient spell of Rome, some say, is falling on them, the memory of Alaric lying dead beneath the river-bed so soon after that last siege and sack; it is said even to have in some measure benumbed Attila himself. Glorious it would be if this old stronghold should by her heroic stand keep back the tide of devastation from our Italy, perchance even drive back for ever the flood of barbarism from the world; and Jerome’s birthplace become the birthplace of a new order and freedom for all Christendom, a new Vulgate or translation of the great old Scriptures of righteousness and peace into the common tongue of men.