There was so much command, so much high pride, and spirit, in his tone, his expression, and his gesture, that an answering chord was struck in the mind of the old man; so that without reply, and without evincing any surprise at seeing the youth's arms unbound, he waved a signal to the slave to depart from the atrium.
Then the youth knelt down on one knee before the altar, and cried aloud in a solemn voice—
"Pardon me, ye Gods of our house, for this dishonor which I have brought upon you; absolve me, ye grand ancestors; mine eyes are open now, and I perceive the sin, the shame, the sorrow of my deeds! Absolve me, ye great Gods, and ye glorious men; and thou, my father, think sometimes of the son, whom it repented of his guilt, but whom it pained not"—he raised his arm aloft, and the bright knife-blade glittered in the rays of the altar-fire, when the old Senator sprang forward, with all his features working strangely, and cried "Hold!"
It might be that he had relented; but if it were so, it was too late; for, finishing his interrupted sentence with these words—
—"to die for his house's honor!"—
the young man struck himself one quick blow on the breast, with a hand so sure and steady, that the knife pierced through his ribs as if they had been paper, and clove his heart asunder, standing fixed hilt-deep in his chest; while, without word, or groan, or sigh or struggle, he dropped flat on his back beside the impluvium, and was dead in less time than it has taken to describe the deed.
The father looked on for a moment calmly; and then said in a cool hard voice, "It is well! it is well! The Gods be thanked! he died as a Roman should!"
Then he composed his limbs, and threw a white cloth which lay nigh the block, over the face and body of the wretched youth.
But, as he turned to leave the atrium, nature was too strong for his philosophy, for his pride; and crying out, "My son! my son! He was yet mine own son! mine own Aulus!" and burying his face in his toga, he burst into a paroxysm of loud grief, and threw himself at length on the dead body: father and son victims alike to the inexorable Roman honor!