“My plan is most simple. To-morrow morning early....”
“That will do,” interrupted Stephanus, who was quite incapacitated by delight, from attending to details. “I trust it all to you, and give you full powers to do whatever you think necessary. As I live, that would be a victory—a triumph such as never was heard of! Come here, lad, that I may kiss you.” He hugged the boy as if he had lost his reason.
“Sleep well!” said Antinous. “You may rest on laurels.” And he ran off.
“Capital, glorious!” murmured his master. “Now—now, fair Domitia....”
In the excitement of his feelings he hid his head in the pillows; a slight shudder shook his meagre frame. He clenched his fists, and closed his lips tightly.—Thus he fell asleep; and his deep and difficult breathing sounded loud in the still, dimly-lighted room.
CHAPTER VI.
After the frightful scene in the sanctuary of Barbillus, Cornelia had rushed blindly down the dark corridor, which brought her to a flight of steps in the outer wing of the building. She thus found her way into the courtyard, and from thence into the anteroom, where Parmenio and Chloe were waiting for her. “Fly!” she cried in desperate accents, and hurried on, past the ostiarius and out into the road.
As soon as she reached home, she went to her own room, evading Chloe’s well-intentioned questions with angry retorts. She lay on her bed till morning, unable to sleep. Her whole being was unhinged. All that had, until now, seemed highest and most sacred, all the transcendental dreams of her ecstatic spirit, were suddenly shown to be empty and base, a miserable illusion, a sordid imposture. With her belief in the divine mission of Barbillus, she flung from her all faith in Isis the universal mother, and indeed, in everything supernatural. It was a sudden convulsion of her whole nature, that had rent and upheaved its very foundations.