“He is dead,” said the jailer. “Did the Augustus desire to withdraw the order? His signet has arrived too late. The prisoner has been throttled by my sons.”
The old man and the two slaves remained for some quarter of an hour in the passage almost smothered by the smoke emitted by the torch.
From within they heard a voice—at intervals, now raised in weeping, then uttering low soothing tones, then raised in a cry as the conclamatio of hired wailers for the dead, calling on Lamia by name to return, to return, to leave the Shadowland and come back into light.
And then—a laugh.
A laugh so weird, so horrible, so unexpected, that with a thrust, without scruple, Eboracus threw open the door.
On the stone pavement sat Domitia, her hair dishevelled, and on her lap the head of the dead man. She was wiping his brow with her veil, stooping, kissing his lips, weeping, then laughing again—then pointing to purple letters, crossed L’s woven into his tunic.
Eboracus saw it all—her reason was gone.
CHAPTER XV.
DRAWING TO THE LIGHT.
In the old home of Gabii, under the tender care of Euphrosyne and in the soothing company of Glyceria, little by little, stage by stage, Domitia recovered.