“You are going?” she said disappointed.
“I have business to attend to.”
“What, again to-day? I thought the most pressing work was now all over.”
The priest sadly shook his head.
“So long as our Quintus lies pining in a dungeon, I cannot have an hour’s rest. What I must do, how and where to set to work—I have no idea. But I must try everything—everything. And alas! Rome is a wide world, and the roads are endless, dear Octavia—if only one of them might lead to the goal. Yes, one does—that I know full well—but it is a bloody and thorny path....”
“I do not understand you.”
“No?” said the priest with a strange smile. “Well, if the law demands a victim, it might be possible to effect an exchange. The few years I have to live—what can they matter? If the father’s grey head were given for the son’s young life—Justice would lose nothing.”
“What are you saying?” cried Octavia horrified. “By Jupiter the all-merciful, cast off these hideous thoughts! You will save him—but not at such a cost! Go, there is none like you! My heart at every throb is always with you.”
At this instant Lucilia came into the room, flushed with eagerness; she had on a long full cloak, as though prepared to go out.
“Where are you going?” asked Octavia, and the priest paused in the door-way.