“You suffer.”
The paralyzed woman could not speak more. She was being lifted out of the litter, and fainted as she was moved. She was conveyed, in a condition of unconsciousness, to the room she was to occupy, a room opening out of the same corridor as that given up to Domitia.
The family physician was summoned; he gave little hopes of the poor woman recovering from the shock, her natural strength and recuperative power had long ago been exhausted.
All that evening Domitia remained silent, apparently in ill humor, or great distress, and Flavia Domitilla was unable to get many words from her.
She retired early to rest, but could not sleep. Before going to her bed, she had visited the sick woman, and she convinced herself with her own eyes that the flame of the lamp of life was flickering to extinction.
Domitia loved the actor’s widow with all the passion of her stormy heart; and the thought of losing her was to her unendurable.
The night was still, balmy, and the heavens star-besprent. She looked from the corridor at the lights above, and then dropped the curtains over her door. She threw herself on her cushions, but her thoughts turned and tossed in her head.
She pressed her knuckles to her eyeballs to close her eyes, but could not force on sleep.
It was to her as though every person whom she loved was taken from her; till she had no one left to whom her heart could cling.
“I vow a pig to Æsculapius!” she said, “if he will recover her!” and then impatiently turned to the wall. “What can Æsculapius do? Whom has he succored at any time? He is but a name.” To whom could she cry? What god of Olympus would stoop to care for—even to look at an actor’s widow, a poor Greek freedwoman.