‘Father!’ began Neæra, leaving her lover’s arms and going to him. The potter held up his hand before her and said, in a broken voice, scarcely more than a hoarse whisper— ‘No—not father!’ ‘What!’ cried the astonished girl. A strange feeling rose through the mind of the Pretorian. He checked it, and despised himself for it, but he could not help it; he would have been other than human to have done so. He looked inquiringly for more to follow from the lips of the potter, but the latter merely murmured— ‘Go, and leave me for a space!’ and then dropped his head, and covered his face with his hands. The sight of his evident agitation was too much for Neæra. She cast a look of perplexity and concern at her lover, and then sprang to her father’s side. As she did so there was a loud knock at the door, which opened, simultaneously, to admit a brown broad‐faced man with a short stiff beard and moustache, bearing a light wallet over one shoulder, and carrying a stout walking‐stick in his hand. CHAPTER VII. The blow, with which Domitius Afer sought to rid himself of his troublesome client, nigh the huge moonlit pile of the Circus Maximus, on the night of the attempted assassination of Fabricius, was not lacking in force, but was a trifle out of direction to prove fatal. Had the stricken man lain without attention, much longer than he did, it would have been sufficient to answer the end that Afer had in view. But it was fated that a house door hard by should open, not long after the knight had disappeared, to allow a man to pass out into the silent street. The luckless Cestus was, as described, lying in the shadow of the wall, whither his patron had dragged him. He was, therefore, directly across the very narrow sidewalk; and, the gloom of the shadow of the wall being intensified by reason of the bright moonlight adjacent, the individual we have mentioned did not perceive the body in his hurry, until he was made aware of its presence by falling over it. He straightway drew the Suburan into the light to make a more minute examination, not having succeeded in awakening any sign of consciousness. In passing his hand over the breast, his fingers met a damp, clammy matter which caused him to shiver. He held his hand in the light, and saw it was blood. The stricken man was still warm and breathing, as he thought; so he, at once, ran back to the house whence he had issued, and knocked loudly. The help of the inmates was readily obtained, and the sorely wounded man was borne inside, and laid on a bed, pending the arrival of a physician. That person came, and practised so well that Cestus recovered consciousness ere he left him.