Cries of "Mercy, mercy," resounded on every side. What each individual would have feared to ask, the crowd demanded. The future Augustus was too weak to go counter to the voice of the people. He raised his right hand. The cause was won! Octavia's presence had the effect on Antony of grateful shade. Never since childhood had he been associated with such a wholesome, comforting personality. The idea of making his home with her gave him a qualm of conscience. If only he had met her earlier he would undoubtedly have been a different man. His way of living would not have become so debased. But, as he was to-day, how could he change his habits? How reach her level? Deluded by an apparently newly gained liberty, he said to himself: "Who knows, it may not be too late!" The next moment the image of the Egyptian sorceress came to him, forbidding any happiness save with her in the alternate fever and ecstasy which her love created. Octavia was thoroughly familiar with Mark Antony's past life. Desirous, as he was, of combining their political interests, her brother, who was devoted to her, had not concealed from her the risks involved in a marriage with Cleopatra's lover. He could not bring himself to praise a man so entirely opposite in character to himself. Fundamentally honest and careful of her future as Octavia was, she might, by these warnings, have been spared such a perilous adventure; but she had a brave heart under her outward shyness. Her youth longed to taste the sweets of passion as well as the quiet joys of life. From their very first interview she had been irresistibly drawn toward the tyrant that Antony was to be in her life. It would not be possible, she thought while admiring his splendid contour and his bright smile, for such a man to be false. If he had yielded to temptations it was because those near him had failed to bind him with that cord of tenderness which can restrain the lion. This was the pathetic mistake of virtue, confident of its own power; that fatal attraction which makes gentle hearts the prey of strong, full-blooded men, and impels them to yield to those who will become their masters and their ruin.