"Are you not convinced that your beauty has such magic power that every man who beholds you forgets every woman he has ever seen?" replied Manlius, half drawing his sword from its sheath.
Glyceria looked into the youth's face as though she were gazing into impenetrable darkness, and asked:
"Even the one who is lying dead at this moment?"
Manlius started back, his breath failed, his face grew corpselike in its pallor. He strove to pronounce Sophronia's name, but his lips would not form the word, and staggering back, he was obliged to lean against a pillar.
Glyceria went toward him, her staring eyes fixed upon his face as if she wished to read his inmost soul.
"Manlius Sinister!" she said calmly. "My dreams have told me that you will kill me, and I know that the hand beneath your chlamys is clutching your sword-hilt. That will be no grief to me. My anguish is that you see in me your promised wife's murderess."
Manlius sighed heavily, and a secret shudder shook his whole frame. In a voice that seemed to come from the grave, he asked:
"How was she killed? Was she torn by wild beasts? Or did greedy flames devour her tender body? Speak, Hetæra. Tell me clearly and minutely how she was tortured to death. I will hear."
"She was not dragged to the scenes of torture, but to Carinus' orgies."
"Ah!" shrieked Manlius in unutterable fury, covering his face. Then, removing his hands, he said quietly: "Go on; omit nothing. Describe step by step the outrage, and in what way my idol was dragged through the mire. Speak!"