Rome, at all events, did not receive her deliverer as Troyes had received the Bishop to whom she owed her existence. To the great city which he had defended when abandoned by all her natural defenders, Leo became thenceforth Rock and Refuge, Chief Shepherd, Supreme Ruler, Father, Pope. Thenceforth Rome and her Pope were identified. The magic of her old Imperial name was transferred to him; the granite of his ancient Roman character guarded her. Leo spoke “to the City”; the city still spoke, as no other voice could speak, to the world. The “ad Urbem” and “ad Orbem” were thenceforth not to be dissociated. We do not hear of any pomp and ovation to do him homage on his return. The city was saved; but the salvation was from a humiliation only possible through the degradation and corruption of the city itself. And this moral degradation continued. [Illustration] CHAPTER XX. AMONG THE HUNS—LEO AND ATTILA. But in the midst of the tide of universal rejoicing (as in the midst of the malaria of almost universal corruption), one little fresh spring of pure and tender joy had burst forth for the household on the Aventine. The ocean tide might and did ebb back from high-water mark; but when it receded, a little fountain of sweet fresh water was found welling up from other depths below earth and sea, as sometimes on the shores of our western seas. Slowly, with the uncertain gait of one toiling up from the ravine of the shadow of death, Marius was creeping up the Aventine, almost spent with fatigue. Ethne saw him first from the terrace above the gardens. In a moment she was at his side, and they were climbing the hill together, those two who were thenceforth to make their uphill journey together all the way. For a moment he clasped her to his heart. “It is through thee I am here,” he said, “through thee that I ever came back at all. It is thou who hast given me back my life.” She could only murmur a few words of Patrick’s hymn, and then, “I always knew He would bring thee back;” and again accepting her support for his feeble steps, they moved on till he reached the familiar portico with her. That evening little more could be said. That “he was there,” as one raised from the dead, and that “He Who brought him back was there,” with them all, always, to the end, was for the hearts of all “gladness so complete,” that no more could be poured in. The welcome, the peace of home, the love, old and new, and at last the falling asleep, watched by his mother’s eyes, as when he was a child, wrought wonders in one night. In the evening scarcely any eyes but those of the love that had never ceased expecting him could have recognized him, with the feeble gait, the hollow eyes, the worn, pale cheek. In the morning the soul had visibly taken her place on the throne again, and he was himself. Still the careful nurses rigidly insisted on rest, until by the next day he had gathered strength to tell his story.