'Am I to have no answer?' he cried, seizing her by the arm. 'Having lost all, are you now too poor-spirited to confess?'
'There is nothing for me to confess. Nor, if there had been, would I deign to speak before that woman,' she answered with desperation, and pointing toward Leta. 'What does she here? How, in her presence, can you dare talk of sin—you who have so cruelly wronged me? And has all manliness left you, that you should ask me to open my heart to you in the presence of a slave; one, too, who has pursued me for weeks with her treacherous hate, and now stands gloating over the misery which she has brought upon me? I tell you that I have said or done nothing which I cannot justify; but that neither will I deign to explain aught to any but yourself alone.'
'The same old excuse!' retorted Sergius. 'No harm done—nothing which cannot be accounted for in all innocence; and yet, upon some poor pretence of wounded pride, that easy explanation will not be vouchsafed! And all the while the damning proof and author of the guilt lies before me!'
With that he extended his foot, and touched the senseless body of Cleotos—striking it carelessly, and not too gently. The effect of the speech and action was to arouse still more actively the energetic impulses of Ænone—but not, alas! to that bold display of conscious innocence with which, a moment before, she had threatened to sweep aside his insinuations, and make good her justification. She was now rather driven into a passion of reckless daring—believing that her fate was prejudged and forestalled—caring but little what might happen to her—wishing only to give way to her most open impulses, let the consequences be what they might. Therefore, in yielding to that spirit of defiance, she did the thing which of all others harmed her most, since its immediate and natural result was to give greater cogency to the suspicions against her. Stooping down and resting herself upon the lounge, she raised the head of the still senseless Cleotos upon her lap, and began tenderly to wipe his lips, from a wound in which a slight stream of blood had begun to ooze.
'He and I are innocent,' she said. 'I have treated him as a brother, that is all. It is years ago that I met him first, and then he was still more to me than now. He is now poor and in misery, and I cannot abandon him. Had he been in your place, and you in his, he would not have thus, without proof, condemned you, and then have insulted your lifeless body.'
For a moment Sergius stood aghast. Excuse and pleading he was prepared to hear. Recriminations would not have surprised him, for he knew that his own course would not bear investigation, and nothing, therefore, could be more natural than that she should attempt to defend herself by becoming the assailant in turn. But that she should thus defy him—before his eyes should bestow endearments upon a slave, the partner of her apparent guilt, and with whom she acknowledged having had an intimacy years before, was too astounding for him at first to understand. Then recovering himself, he cried aloud:
'Is this to be borne? Ho, there, Drumo! Meros! all of you! Take this wretch and cast him into the prison! See that he does not escape, on your lives! He shall feed the lions to-morrow! By the gods, he shall feed the lions! Bear him away! Let me not see him again till I see his blood lapped up in the arena. Away with him, I say!'
As the first cry of Sergius rang through the halls, the armor bearer appeared at the door; and before many more seconds had elapsed, other slaves, armed and unarmed, swarmed forth from different courts and passages, until the antechamber was filled with them. None of them knew what had happened, but they saw that, in some way, Cleotos had incurred the anger of his master, and lay stunned and bleeding before them. To obey was the work of a moment. The giant Drumo, stooping down, wound his arm around the body of Cleotos, hoisted him upon his broad shoulder, and stalked out of the room. The other slaves followed. Ænone, who, in the delirium of her defiance, might have tried to resist, was overpowered by her own attendants, who also had flocked in at Sergius's call, and now gently forced her from the room. And in a moment more, Sergius was left alone with Leta.
She, crouching in a dark corner of the room, awaited her opportunity to say the words which she dared not say while he was in this storm of wild passion; he, thinking himself entirely alone, stalked up and down like a caged tiger, muttering curses upon himself, upon Ænone, upon the slave, upon all who directly or indirectly had been concerned in his supposed disgrace. Let it not be forgotten that, though at first he had acted hastily and upon slight foundation of proof, and had cruelly wounded her spirit by abhorrent insinuations, without giving time or opportunity for her to explain herself, she had afterward given way to an insane impulse, and had so conducted herself as to fix the suspicion of guilt upon herself almost ineffaceably. What further proof could he need? While, with false lips, she had denied all, had she not, at the same time, lavished tender caresses upon the vile slave?
Then, too, what had he not himself done to add to the sting of his disgrace? Convinced of her guilt, he should have quietly put her away, and the truth would have leaked out only little by little, so as to be stripped of half of its mortification. But he had called up his slaves. They had entered upon the scene, and would guess at everything, if they did not know it already! The mouths of menials could not be stopped. To-morrow all Rome would know that the imperator Sergius, whose wife had been the wonder of the whole city for her virtue and constancy, had been deceived by her, and for a low-born slave! Herein, for the moment, seemed to lie half the disgrace. Had it been a man of rank and celebrity like himself—but a slave! And how would he dare to look the world in the face—he who had been proud of his wife's unsullied reputation, even when he had most neglected her, and who had so often boasted over his happy lot to those who, having the reputation of being less fortunate, had complacently submitted themselves to bear with indifference a disgrace which, at that age, seemed to be almost the universal doom!