"Woe! woe to the house of Lucanus!" wailed the aged woman, and would have fallen if Martius had not caught her in his strong arms.
The slaves, frightened, had gathered in the doorway. At a sign from Aurelius, they carried her away, while Sahira tried to assist Virgilia to calm her mother.
"She is very aged," explained the lawyer.
"She must be crazy," energetically remarked the Senator, demanding his chair.
When he had gone away, and Claudia was in bed, with Virgilia, by her side, the lawyer sat a long time in his little room and thought.
What was this woe that the Old One had prophesied for him and his household?
As the light of a rosy dawn bathed the world in the beauty of a promised day, he arose.
"She must be crazy," he said, repeating the Senator's words.
But he did not forget.