About a hundred yards farther on a small circular clearing opened to their right; the entrance to it was decorated with gold-colored festoons. Just before reaching this spot the path became so narrow, that a stout man could hardly pass along it; the wall of yew on each side had overgrown three-quarters of its width. Polycharma drew the folds of her dress more closely round her slim limbs, while the young man pushed aside the branches to the right and left. He looked round once more to see if he could discover Lycoris, but behind him all was silent and deserted. Even the sound of the music was only heard faintly and as if in a dream. Having reached the round plot, the slave girl took a letter out of her bosom. “My lord,” she said, “I must exact a solemn oath from you....”
“What about?”
“That you will keep my errand an absolute secret, and return me this letter when you have read it.”
“Good, I swear it by Jupiter!”
Polycharma handed him the note; the mere sight of it filled him with a suspicion of its origin. He hastily broke the seal and the silk thread, and by the light of the colored lamps which lighted the place, he read as follows:
“She who is wont only to command, humbles herself to the dust—so terrible is the power of love to change us. The cruel wretch who scorns me—he is the god of my aspirations! Have pity, O Quintus! have pity on the miserable woman, who is dying of love for you. Caesar, my husband, holds out his hand to me in reconciliation. It costs me but one word, and I shall be again, as I have been, the mistress of Rome and sovereign of the world. But behold, beloved Quintus, all this might and all this splendor I will cast from me and go into the remotest banishment without a tear, if you will give me, for one second only, the happy certainty of your love. Crush me, kill me, but ere you kill me say you are mine! Quintus, I await my sentence. At a sign, a glance, from you I reject all reconciliation.”
The young man was stunned; he stared speechless at the letter, which declared in such plain terms a consuming passion. And yet, in spite of the answering emotion which any love—even though it be rejected—must rouse in the recipient, he could not shake off the feeling which he had already experienced at Baiae. A dull, unutterable loathing remained paramount in his soul, and the foppish figure of Paris, the actor, rose clearly before his fancy. Had not the ear of that slave drunk in the same flattering words, as were now intended to intoxicate and ravish him? Miserable, contemptible woman—ah! how differently and how truly beat the proud heart of his Cornelia!
Cornelia!—The thought of her turned the balance finally; Quintus drew a wax tablet out of his bosom and wrote on it:
“I feel and acknowledge the greatness of the sacrifice, which your Highness proposes to make; but, as a true patriot, I must prefer the advantages which will ensue to the state from the reunion of the sovereign couple, even to the duties imposed by gratitude.”
He folded the tablet in the letter, tied it up again and gave it to Polycharma, who swiftly vanished. When her steps were no longer audible, Quintus pressed his hand over his eyes and sat down on a marble bench to reflect. Oh! that sly, intriguing Lycoris! She too, then, was paid by the Empress as well as by Stephanus! Subsidized by both, and a traitoress to both—for so much at any rate was certain: Stephanus knew nothing of this nocturnal meeting. He, the real instigator of the scene in the circus, could evidently have no part in an intrigue, of which the issue would be diametrically opposed to his own efforts.