indignation. How had he tried to win Lygia? Instead of bowing before
Aulus and Pomponia to get her, he took the child away from her parents
by stratagem. He wanted to make, not a wife, but a concubine of her,
the foster daughter of an honorable house, and the daughter of a king.
He had her brought to this abode of crime and infamy; he defiled her
innocent eyes with the sight of a shameful feast; he acted with her as
with a wanton. Had he forgotten the house of Aulus and Pomponia
Græcina, who had reared Lygia? Had he not sense enough to understand
that there are women different from Nigidia or Calvia Crispinilla or
Poppæa, and from all those whom he meets in Cæsar's house? Did he not
understand at once on seeing Lygia that she is an honest maiden, who
prefers death to infamy? Whence does he know what kind of gods she
worships, and whether they are not purer and better than the wanton
Venus, or than Isis, worshipped by the profligate women of Rome? No!
Lygia had made no confession to her, but she had said that she looked
for rescue to him, to Vinicius: she had hoped that he would obtain for
her permission from Cæsar to return home, that he would restore her to
Pomponia. And while speaking of this, Lygia blushed like a maiden who
loves and trusts. Lygia's heart beat for him; but he, Vinicius, had
terrified and offended her; had made her indignant; let him seek her now
with the aid of Cæsar's soldiers, but let him know that should Poppæa's
child die, suspicion will fall on Lygia, whose destruction will then be
inevitable.

Emotion began to force its way through the anger and pain of Vinicius.
The information that he was loved by Lygia shook him to the depth of his
soul. He remembered her in Aulus's garden, when she was listening to
his words with blushes on her face and her eyes full of light. It
seemed to him then that she had begun to love him; and all at once, at
that thought, a feeling of certain happiness embraced him, a hundred