The noise of the shouts those fickle soldiers gave reached the ears of the deceived Nymphidius, who suddenly resolved to throw himself among them without waiting for the presence of the other conspirators. At this important crisis his thoughts suddenly reverted to his wife: an undefined foreboding of coming evil entered his breast; he had never experienced the sensation before. He must see her, must bid her farewell; perhaps he might never return. He entered her apartment and found her seated beside a small table perusing some vellum scrolls, a silver lamp burning before her cast a sort of glory round her exquisitely moulded head and waving ringlets, a white robe fell round a form whose living beauty sculpture would vainly imitate. The holy peace, the deep repose of innocence and purity rested on her lovely features as she bent over the inspired writings with rapt attention, undisturbed even by the step of the ambitious aspirant of empire. He looked earnestly and intently upon his Christian wife, a momentary calm stole over his senses, he uttered her name, but the tones died away unheard. The distant shouts from the camp excited a fresh fever in his brain. “Lucia Claudia!” cried he, and his voice, no longer indistinct, sounded deep as from out of the earth. She started in surprise and terror as she rose to meet him. The muscles of his throat were swollen, a fearful energy sat on his brow, his eyes were fixed and glaring, but gradually softened as they encountered hers. Some terrible determination was struggling within his soul; she almost imagined he intended to do her harm. Suddenly Nymphidius caught her in his arms and passionately and repeatedly embraced her, then flung her from him, then caressed her again. She endured this without returning his caresses or resenting his violence. “You do not love me!” he exclaimed,—“you hate me, and yet I am risking my life to make you the greatest lady in Rome; but, mark me, Lucia Claudia, I will neither live nor die without you. The partner of my throne or of my grave, no power shall divide your fate from mine. If I fall, you shall never wed another man; for if I thought so, I would——” he laid his hand on his sword with a terrible look that gave full meaning to the unfinished sentence. Lucia’s countenance expressed apprehension, she trembled, she endeavoured to speak. He drew her to him, pressed a kiss on her brow, and disappeared; she heard him speaking to his freedman, and then his footsteps echoed on the marble pavement of the court beneath. He went alone to the camp, and perished there. ----- [14] See Appendix, Note VII. CHAPTER XVI. “When died she?”—BYRON.