[Still reading.] He take a woman to wife! Constantius,—that dwindling shadow of a man——! Faustina,—what is this?—young, scarcely nineteen,—a daughter of——ah! a daughter of that insolent tribe. Therefore, of course, a zealous Christian woman. [He folds the papers together.] You are right, Sallust; his decay gives no room for hope. What though he be decrepit, dying,—what of that? Is not Faustina pious. An annunciating angel will appear; or even——; ha-ha!—in short,—by some means or other,—a young Caesar will be forthcoming, and thus——
Sallust.
Delay means ruin.
Julian.
This move has long been planned in all secrecy, Sallust! Ah, now all the riddles are solved. Helena——, ’twas not, as I conceived, her heedless tongue that destroyed her——
Sallust.
No, my lord!
Julian.
——they thought,—they believed that——! oh inscrutable, even-handed retribution! that was why she had to die.
Sallust.