There was little time for consideration. It was no moment, they all felt, for a woman to venture into the perils of a journey across Europe. It was therefore decided that Baithene should go back with Dewi to Ireland. It was also a time, Marius felt, for every Roman who was able to devote himself to the defence of the Empire against a force whose triumph would mean the destruction of Christianity and civilization, the laying waste of all Europe into a Tartar wilderness, creation lapsing again into chaos. And so the four, so recently drawn together, had to part. But the parting brought in some ways a new certainty of their inseparable union, like the ripening of a “sudden frost.” Baithene said to Lucia— “I am going to my Ireland, with no doubt in my heart as to the welcome my father and mother would have for thee. Only for thee, sometimes I scarcely dare to ask that thou shouldst come forth to share our rough life, to be exiled from such a home as thine.” “My father,” was Lucia’s answer, “thinks of that island of thine as a haven of peace and simplicity, and my mother as an isle of saints, compared with our Rome.” “But thou thyself?” “I am not sure of any country being a haven, or a heaven,” she said. “Perhaps,” she added with a smile, “neither thou nor I may be ready for either yet. I may have to grow younger, and thou older. But we should be _together_, in the storm or in the calm. And I am well content.” And Marius said to Ethne— “How can I leave thee, who hast made earth dear to me and heaven real? who hast given me back faith in God and hope in man?” “Thou art not leaving me,” Ethne replied. “We are in one path, in the steps of the pitiful, redeeming Lord. Thou wilt not despair of the slaves, however degraded, or of the Huns, however savage, for His sake.” “For His sake and thine,” he replied, “for the sacred memory of thy captivity, and the dear first vision of thee beside the poor dying boy. Thou feelest then, beloved, that we are beginning our life together now?” “Have we not begun?” she said. “Our paths may be divided for a little while, but _we_ never.” And so they parted. For three long months, throughout the spring, the tidings of the ruin and ravage of the Huns on the northern shores of the Adriatic continued to reach the household on the Aventine. The great hordes were still swarming in the neighbourhood of unconquered Aquileia, whither they knew Marius had gone, and where the Roman garrison were making a stand worthy of old Rome. One letter reached the mother from her son—