The acute senses of the dying man had, indeed, heard footsteps without. They were those of the perfidious brother. But, at the call from within, he retreated hastily. There was no answer—there was no help. But there was still some consciousness. Death was not yet triumphant. There was a pang yet to be felt—and a pleasure. It was still in the power of the dying man to lift to his embrace his innocent victim. A moment’s return of consciousness enabled her to feel his embrace, his warm tears upon her cheek, and to hear his words of entreaty and tenderness imploring forgiveness. And speech was vouchsafed her to accord it. “I forgive thee, my Cœlius—I forgive thee, and bless thee, and love thee to the last. I know that thou would’st never do me hurt of thy own will; I know that thou wert deceived to this—yet how, oh, how, when my head lay upon thy breast at night, and I slept in peace, could’st thou think that I should do thee wrong!” “Why,” murmured the miserable man, “why, oh, why?” “Had I but told thee, and trusted in thee, my Cœlius?” “Why did’st thou not?” “It was because of my brother’s persuasion that I did not—he wished not that thou should’st come to evil.” “And thou forgiv’st me, Aurelia—from thy very heart thou forgiv’st me?” “All, all—from my heart and soul, my husband.” “It will not, then, be very hard to die!” An hour after and the chamber was silent. The wife had yielded first. She breathed her last sigh upon his bosom, and with the last effort of his strength he lifted her gently and laid her in the sarcophagus, composing with affectionate care the drapery around her. Then, remembering the picture, he looked around him for his sword with which to obliterate the portraits which his genius had assigned to so lamentable an eternity; but his efforts were feeble, and the paralysis of death seized him while he was yet making them. He sunk back with palsied limbs upon the bier, and the lights, and the picture, faded from before his eyes, with the last pulses of his life. The calumny which had destroyed his hopes, survived its own detection. The recorded falsehood was triumphant over the truth; yet may you see to this day, where the random strokes of the weapon were aimed for its obliteration. Of himself there is no monument in the tomb, though one touching memorial has reached us. The vaulted chamber buried in the earth was discovered by accident. A fracture was made in its top by an Italian gentleman in company with a Scottish nobleman. As they gazed eagerly through the aperture, they beheld an ancient warrior in full armor, and bearing a coronet of gold. The vision lasted but a moment. The decomposing effects of the air were soon perceptible. Even while they gazed, the body seemed agitated with a trembling, heaving motion, which lasted a few minutes, and then it subsided into dust. When they penetrated the sepulchre, they found the decaying armor in fragments, the sword and the helmet, or crown of gold.