"What would you make of me?" he replied. "On this alone my heart is set. Take it from me,—I would drift an aimless barque on the tide of time."
She shook her head but avoided his gaze.
"You aim to accomplish the impossible. Crows do not feed on the living, and the dead do not rise again. Ah! How, if your miracle does not succeed?"
Otto drew himself up to his full height.
"Gloria Victis,—but before my doom, I shall prove worthy of myself."
Suddenly a strange thought came over him.
"Stephania," he faltered, "what do you want with me?"
"I want you to be frankly my foe," exclaimed the beautiful wife of Crescentius. "You must not pass by like this, without telling me that you are. You speak of a past. Sometimes I think it were better, if there had been no past. Better burn a corpse than leave it unburied. All the friends of my dreams are here,—their shades surround us,—in their company one grows afraid as among the shroudless dead. It is impossible. You cannot mean the annihilation of the past, you cannot mean to be against Rome—against me!"
Otto faced her, pale and silent, vainly striving to speak. He dared not trust himself. As he stepped back, she clutched his arm.
"Tell me that you are my enemy," she said, with heart-broken challenge in her voice.