“Nay, to-morrow! to-morrow!”
He then retired to sleep, and rested several hours. She looked on him while he slept. He had never rested so profoundly since he had begun the labor from which he was now freed. The slumber of an infant had never been less disturbed, never been softer, sweeter, or purer. The beauty of Cœlius was that of the most peaceful purity. She bent over him as he slept, and kissed his forehead with looks of the truest devotion, while two big tears gathered in her large eyes, and slowly felt their way along her cheeks. She turned away lest the warm drops falling upon his face might awake him. She turned away, and in her own apartment gave free vent to the feelings which his pure and placid slumbers seemed rather to subdue than encourage. Why, with such a husband—her first love—and with so many motives to happiness, was she not happy? Alas! who shall declare for the secret yearnings of the heart, and say, as idly as Canute to the sea, “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther—here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” Aurelia was a creature of fears and anxieties, and many a secret and sad presentiment. She was very far from happy—ill at ease—and—but why anticipate? We shall soon enough arrive at the issue of our melancholy narrative!
That night, while she slept—for grief and apprehension have their periods of exhaustion, which we misname repose—her husband rose from his couch, and with cautious footsteps departed from his dwelling. He was absent all the night, and returned only with the dawn. He re-entered his home with the same stealthy caution with which he had quitted it, and it might have been remarked that he dismissed his brother, with two other persons, at the threshold. They were all masked, and otherwise disguised with cloaks. Why this mystery? Where had they been—on what mission of mischief or of shame? To Cœlius such a necessity was new, and scarcely had he entered his dwelling than he cast aside his disguises with the air of one who loathes their uses. He was very pale and haggard, with a fixed but glistening expression of the eye, a brow of settled gloom, from which hope and faith, and every interest in life seemed utterly to be banished. A single groan escaped him when he stood alone, and then he raised himself erect, as if hitherto he had leaned upon the arms of others. He carried himself firmly and loftily, his lips compressed, his eye eagerly looking forward, and thus, after the interval of a few seconds, he passed to the chamber of his wife. And still she slept. He bent over her, earnestly and intently gazing upon those beauties which grief seemed only to sadden into superior sweetness. He looked upon her with those earnest eyes of love, the expression of which can never be misunderstood. Still he loved her, though between her heart and his a high, impassable barrier had been raised up by the machinations of a guilty spirit. Tenderness was the prevailing character of his glance until she spoke. Her sleep, though deep, was not wholly undisturbed. Fearful images crossed her fancy. She started and sobbed, and cried, “Save, O save and spare him—Flavius, my dear Flavius!”—and her breathing again became free, and her lips sunk once more into repose. But fearful was the change, from a saddened tenderness to agony and despair, which passed over the features of Cœlius as he listened to her cry. Suddenly, striking his clenched hands against his forehead, he shook them terribly at the sleeping woman, and rushed wildly out of the apartment.
——
CHAPTER V.
Progress to the Sepulchre.
It was noon of the same day—a warm and sunny noon, in which the birds and the breeze equally counseled pleasure and repose. The viands stood before our Cœlius and his wife, the choicest fruits of Italy, and cates which might not, in later days, have misbeseemed the favorite chambers of Lucullus. The goblet was lifted in the hands of both, and the heart of Aurelia felt almost as cheerful as the expression on her face. It was the reflection in the face of her husband. His brow was gloomy no longer. The tones of his voice were neither cold, nor angry, nor desponding. A change—she knew not why—had come over his spirit, and he smiled, nay, laughed out, in the very exultation of a new life. Aurelia conjectured nothing of this so sudden change. Enough that it was grateful to her soul. She was too happy in its influence to inquire into its cause. What heart that is happy does inquire? She quaffed the goblet at his bidding—quaffed it to the dregs—and her eye gleamed delighted and delightfully upon his, even as in the first hours of their union. She had no apprehensions—dreaded nothing sinister—and did not perceive that ever, at the close of his laughter, there was a convulsive quiver—a sort of hysterical sobbing, that he seemed to try to subdue in vain. She noticed not this, nor the glittering, almost spectral brightness of his glance, as, laughing tumultuously, he still kept his gaze intently fixed upon her. She was blind to all things but the grateful signs of his returning happiness and attachment. Once more the goblet was lifted. “To Turmes (Mercury) the conductor,” cried the husband. The wife drank unwittingly—for still her companion smiled upon her, and spoke joyfully, and she was as little able as willing to perceive that any thing occult occured in his expression.
“Have you drank?” he asked.
She smiled, and laid the empty goblet before him.
“Come, then, you shall now behold the picture. You will now be prepared to understand it.”