So, listless and silent, she lay on her pillows, reviewing in imagination the events of the last few hours in pictures that seemed to mock her as they passed. The Apollo-like figure of the young patrician, who had fired her fancy at Baiae, seemed to smile at her contemptuously; she sighed and closed her eyes, as though to escape the vision. Till a few hours ago, she had believed that she had conquered that madness. Her spirit had found strength in resolving on revenge, and she had felt like a goddess bent on punishing the presumption of a mortal. But now--in this new mood--she was conscious of a subtle change, the desire for revenge remained, but now there was nothing lofty, no sense of superiority in the feeling--the goddess had given place to a vain, lovesick woman, full of annoyance and petty spite. This change was a result of her altered circumstances; the sight of her husband had reminded her of the fact which she had striven to the utmost to ignore; that one word from that adored youth would have sufficed to make this reconciliation an impossibility. Shame and hatred, rage and passion, seethed in her soul, and her self-tormenting fancy painted alternately the most enchanting and the most horrible pictures. As in some hideous dream, the form and features of Quintus were mixed up with those of her former lover, the executed actor. She saw herself in tears, kneeling wildly at his feet--he raised her, kissed her, her senses reeled. Then he scornfully flung her from him--she shuddered from head to foot, and stabbed him desperately with her poniard.... Then again she recalled the occasion, when Polycharma had returned to her with the little tablet that Quintus had given to the slave-girl in the park, the answer to her last passionate letter--that tablet had been her death-warrant--but no, not hers--his! “He must die!”--she seemed to see the words traced between those fatal lines. Then everything faded from her vision like a landscape shrouded in mist. Instead of the slave-girl, it was the flute-player, who stood before her with a triumphant sparkle in her eyes, as her cheek flushed under the traitor’s touch--as she had seen her stand, the bold hussy, on the hill at Cumae--happy, no doubt, in the love that she, the Empress, pined for. The thought was intolerable; the miserable woman writhed under the clutch of the demon of jealousy. She groaned and struggled for breath. Polycharma started to her feet. “Lady, mistress--what is the matter?” she asked, gazing helplessly at Domitia’s distorted features. But the sound of a voice broke the spell; Domitia controlled herself. Not a soul on earth, not even this trusted slave, should ever know how low she could be brought. She would hold herself proudly and defiantly--aye, though she should suffocate in the effort. Polycharma should suppose that the adventure in the gardens of Lycoris was a mere whim, a comedy; never would she betray the anguish of her unrequited passion and deep humiliation.