"You are not mistaken, you are sure you saw him?"

"With these eyes."

"Abominable, unworthy, disgraceful!" cried Sabina, so loudly and
violently that she was startled at the shrill tones of her own voice.
Her tall thin figure quivered with excitement, and to any one else she
would have appeared in the highest degree graceless, unwomanly, and
repulsive: but Verus had been accustomed from his childhood to see her
with kinder eyes than other men, and it grieved him.

There are women who remind us of fading flowers, extinguished lights or
vanishing shades, and they are not the least attractive of their sex: but
the large-boned, stiff and meagre Sabina had none of the yielding and
tender grace of these gentle creatures. Her feeble health, which was
very evident, became her particularly ill when, as at this moment, the
harsh acrimony of her embittered soul came to light with hideous
plainness.

She was deeply indignant at the affront her husband had put upon her.
Not content with having a separate house established for her he kept
aloof in Alexandria without informing her of his arrival. Her hands
trembled with rage, and stammering rather than speaking she desired the
praetor to order a composing draught for her. When Verus returned she
was lying on her cushions, with her face turned to the wall, and said
lamentably:

"I am freezing; spread that coverlet over me. I am a miserable, ill-used
creature."