"No; I could not believe that the death of traitors could so affect thee." "Thou art in the right. Perhaps, according to law, they were not deserving of death; and I loved Boëthius much. But they were traitors a thousand times! Traitors in their thoughts, traitors to my trust, to my heart. I prized these Romans more than the best of my people. And they showed their gratitude by wishing that my crown were the Emperor's; they wrote flattering letters to the Byzantines; they preferred a Justinus and a Justinian to the friendship of a Theodoric! I am not sorry for them; I despise them. Guess again. What didst thou believe?" "King, thy heir is a youth, and enemies encompass thy throne." The sick man frowned. "This time thou art nearer the mark. I always knew the weakness of my kingdom. When at the evening banquet I have shown the proud face of confidence to the foreign ambassadors, at night I have anxiously sighed at its inward disease. Old man, I know that thou hast often considered me all too confident. But none might see me tremble, neither friend nor foe. Else my throne had trembled. I sighed only when alone, and have borne my care in solitude." "Thou art wisdom itself, my King, and I was a fool!" cried the old man. "Thou seest," continued the King, stroking the old man's hand, "that I knew in what I displeased thee. I knew also thy blind hatred of these Italians. Believe me, it _is_ blind, as was, perhaps, my love of them." Here he stopped and sighed. "Why wilt thou distress thyself?" "No, let me continue! I know that my kingdom--the work of my glorious and toilsome life--may easily fall. Perhaps owing to my generosity to these Romans. Be it so! No work of man is eternal, and the error of over-kindness is easily borne!" "My great King!" "But, Hildebrand, one night, as I was lying awake, anxious about the danger of my kingdom, there rose before my soul the ghost of another sin! Not of too much kindness, but of bloody force! And woe, woe to me, if my nation is to be destroyed in expiation of the crime of Theodoric! His, _his_ image rises before me!" The sick man spoke with difficulty, and lay for a moment overwhelmed with emotion. "Whose image? of whom dost thou speak?" asked the old man softly, bending over him. "Odoacer!" whispered the King, and Hildebrand bowed his head. At last Theodoric broke the painful silence. "Yes, old friend, this right hand, as thou knowest, struck down the mighty hero--my guest--at the banquet-table. His hot blood splashed into my face, and an ardent hate flashed upon me from his filming eyes. A few months past, during the night I speak of, his bloody, pale and angry form rose before me like an avenging god. My heart was contracted, my pulses beat with fever. The fearful conviction came over me that my kingdom would fall and my nation decay, because of this my bloody deed." This time, after a short pause, Hildebrand, looking up defiantly, said: