The old Senator, as he spoke, moved forward with dignified bearing and, leaning on his crutches, stood before the Augustus. "Augustus Carinus, I have come to bring a charge, or, if it pleases you better, to beseech a favour. I had an only daughter----" "You have another," interrupted Aevius. "I say I had an only daughter. She was the joy of my life, the prop of my old age. Allured by a new religion, this girl and her companions were captured at the meeting place of the Christians. I will not argue with you over matters of belief, Carinus, but I entreat you to listen to the petition of a man who has grown grey in the service of Rome, and restore my only child." Carinus raised himself indolently from his _lectisternium_ and whispered a few words to his eunuch. Then he turned to Mesembrius. "Senator, we do not know whether your daughter is among the captured Christians; had we been aware of it we should have delivered her up to you long ago. She was beautiful, you said?" "I did not say so, O Lord." "I have so understood. But unfortunately I must inform you that a beautiful girl in this band of Christians killed herself last night in prison." "That was not my daughter. Sophronia could not forget her grey-haired father, whom her loss would drive to despair." "Look at the corpse, Senator, and if it is not your daughter, which from my heart I hope, I will have her brought here at once and she can then return with you." Mesembrius was so startled by this unexpected favour that he forgot to express his thanks for it. The eunuch returned, followed by two slaves, who bore on a bier a corpse covered with a large pall. Aevius drew it from the body. Mesembrius pressed his hand upon his heart; the blood rushed to his temples; his breath failed; he could not move; he stood motionless for a time, then, with a wild cry of anguish, flung himself upon the lifeless form. "My child! My dear, dear child!" "So I have him to fear, too," murmured Carinus. Sobbing aloud, Mesembrius embraced the beautiful, beloved body. Death had restored to the face the repose, the supernatural loveliness which had been peculiar to it in life. It seemed as though she were sleeping and at a call would wake. "Oh, my dear, sweet child," sobbed the old man; "why must you leave me here? If you were resolved to die, why did you not appear to me in a dream, that I might have followed you? What have I to love in this world now that you are no more? What is to become of me, an old withered tree, whose only blossoming branch has been cut off? Have you no longer one word, one smile for me? Once you were so gay, so full of cheerful converse--oh, why must I endure this?" The father turned neither to the Caesar nor to the courtiers; he gave free course to his tears, burying his face in his dead daughter's winding-sheet.