“Sweet wife, am I not better to thee than ten sons? If it be God’s will that we should never see a child grow up, to be our pride and joy, let us recall how many sons there are who are the curse and sorrow of their parents’ lives, and at least be thankful we are spared such grief as that would be to us.”
“I am ashamed to murmur while I have thee,” she whispered, “but do not leave me here while thou art gone to Rome, with that huge obelisk. It might be a year of absence, and I feel as if I could scarcely live without thee.”
“Dear wife, if I carry out this mission with success, I may be raised to a higher rank, and give thee many more of the luxuries and adornments of life. But I feel I must have a mind entirely abstracted from other matters, or I may fail, and then—!”
Cynthia sprang up, exclaiming—“Fail! nay, my presence shall assure thy triumphant success. Let me only come to share thy danger and difficulty, and I am content.”
The sadness and depression had passed away now, and Heraclitus looking down into his wife’s eyes, saw in them an earnest of success.
“Be it so then, my sweet one—the galley shall be prepared for thee and thy attendants. Make thy preparations, and we will go to Rome together!”
Like the faint memory of a dream the scene of her childhood came back to Cynthia, as she presented herself, a few months later, with two of her maidens at the door of the Vestals’ atrium. Thoughts of her father, and of Claudius, of dear faithful Anna, to whose hand she clung on that morning long ago, came thronging to her heart.
She remembered how, when her father and Anna led her to the room where the Vestal Maxima lay dying, Claudius held back. The greatness of his unselfish and unchanging love seemed to be clearer to her now than it had ever been before—the love which was divine in its character, the love which forgot everything but the good of the one beloved, seemed to present itself to the fair wife of Heraclitus, as she stood at the gate of the Vestals’ House.
It was yet early, and there seemed to be no one stirring. The big heavy door was closed, and the faint tap which Cynthia’s little slender hand made upon it was not answered.