love Lucilla, but we must both admire her for I do not know another woman
in Rome whose virtue a man might vouch for. Besides, I owe her a father,
and am glad to have such a daughter; thus we shall be blessed with
children. Whether I shall appoint Verus my successor and proclaim to the
world who shall be its future ruler I cannot now decide; for that I need
a calmer hour. Till to-morrow, Sabina. This day began with a
misfortune; may the deed with which we have combined to end it prosper
and bring us happiness."




CHAPTER XVII.

There are often fine warm days in February, but those who fancy the
spring has come find themselves deceived. The bitter, hard Sabina could
at times let soft and tender emotions get the mastery over her, but as
soon as the longing of her languishing soul for maternal happiness was
gratified, she closed her heart again and extinguished the fire that had
warmed it. Every one who approached her, even her husband, felt himself
chilled and repelled again by her manner.

Verus was ill. The first symptoms of a liver complaint which his
physicians had warned him might ensue, if he, an European, persisted in
his dissipated life at Alexandria as if it were Rome, now began to
occasion him many uneasy hours, and this, the first physical pain that
fate had ever inflicted on him, he bore with the utmost impatience.
Even the great news which Sabina brought him, realizing his boldest
aspirations, had no power to reconcile him to the new sensation of being
ill. He learnt, at the same time, that Hadrian's alarm at the