[83] "Strange! Marvellous!"

Drusus kept on, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left,
until he found himself past the boundary stone between his own estate
and that of the Lentuli. Then he stopped and passed his hand over his
forehead. It was damp with an unhealthy sweat. His hands and frame
were quivering as if in an ague. He seated himself on a stone bench by
the roadway, and tried to collect his faculties.

"Bear up, Drusus; be a Livian, as you boast yourself," he declaimed
frantically to himself. "Cornelia shall still be yours! All things are
possible to one who is young and strong, with a clear conscience!"

If this self-debate did not actually stimulate cheerfulness, it at
least revived the embers of hope; and Drusus found himself trying to
look the situation fairly in the face.

"You have thrown away your right to marry the dearest, loveliest, and
noblest girl in the world," he reflected bitterly. "You have made an
implacable enemy of one of the most powerful men of the state. In
short, your happiness is gone, and perhaps your life is in danger--and
for what? A dream of reform which can never be realized? A mad
conspiracy to overthrow the commonwealth? Is Cæsar to be saviour or
despot? For what have you sacrificed yourself?"

Lentulus, he knew perfectly well, was really above law. No jury would
ever convict the leader of the Senate party. Drusus could never
contract lawful marriage with Cornelia, so long as her guardian
withheld consent. And for one moment he regretted of his