hundredth time with grateful joy that the faithless scapegrace had once
more returned to her unchangeable and faithful heart, like a sailor who,
after wandering through many lands seeks his native port.

"Lucilla," he cried, disengaging her arms from round his neck.
"Oh, Lucilla! what an evening this has been! I always judged Sabina
differently from you, and have felt with gratitude that she really cared
for me. Now all is clear between her and me! She called me her son.
I called her mother. I owe it to her, and the purple--the purple is
ours! You are the wife of Verus Caesar; you are certain of it if no
signs and omens come to frighten Hadrian."

In a few eager words, which betrayed not merely the triumph of a lucky
gambler, but also true emotion and gratitude, he related all that had
passed in Sabina's room. His frank and confident contentment silenced
her doubts, her dread of the stupendous fate which, beckoning her, yet
threatening her, drew visibly nearer and nearer. In her mind's eye she
saw the husband she loved, she saw her son, seated on the throne of the
Caesars, and she herself crowned with the radiant diadem of the woman
whom she hated with all the force of her soul. Her husband's kindly
feeling towards the Empress and the faithful allegiance which had tied
him to her from his boyhood did not disquiet her; but a wife allows the
husband of her choice every happiness, every gift excepting only the love
of another woman, and will forgive her hatred and abuse rather than such
love.

Lucilla was greatly excited, and a thought, that for years had been
locked in the inmost shrine of her heart, to-day proved too strong for
her powers of reticence. Hadrian was supposed to have murdered her
father, but no one could positively assert it, though either he or