He went to join Octavia, to inform her as to the issue of his efforts. He found her alone; but in the adjoining room, with the door half open, Baucis was sitting and chattering, it would seem to herself. The priest closed the door and told his story, and his manner and way of speaking were reassuring. As he spoke the name of Quintus, Octavia sighed deeply, but her looks showed that she had not yet given up her hope of a happy ending to their trouble. When her husband had done speaking, she went up to him with the gentle and almost childlike reverence with which she always treated him, and took his hand. “My dearest,” she said, looking at him through her tears, “what have you not had to suffer in these dreadful times of sorrow and terror! If only I could relieve you of the whole burden of anxiety! We women succumb and bend, and the weight is less intolerable. But you--proud, unyielding, you hold up your head and stiffen your neck and suffer doubly.” Titus Claudius embraced her in silence, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and wept. He gently smoothed her still abundant hair and said, half-unconsciously: “Save your tears, Octavia! save your tears....” “You will need them in a worse hour than this,” he would have added, but he realized what he was saying in time to check himself. He clasped her more closely and only saying: “Farewell for the present,” he turned to leave the room. “You are going?” she said disappointed. “I have business to attend to.” “What, again to-day? I thought the most pressing work was now all over.” The priest sadly shook his head. “So long as our Quintus lies pining in a dungeon, I cannot have an hour’s rest. What I must do, how and where to set to work--I have no idea. But I must try everything--everything. And alas! Rome is a wide world, and the roads are endless, dear Octavia--if only one of them might lead to the goal. Yes, one does--that I know full well--but it is a bloody and thorny path....” “I do not understand you.” “No?” said the priest with a strange smile. “Well, if the law demands a victim, it might be possible to effect an exchange. The few years I have to live--what can they matter? If the father’s grey head were given for the son’s young life--Justice would lose nothing.” “What are you saying?” cried Octavia horrified. “By Jupiter the all-merciful, cast off these hideous thoughts! You will save him--but not at such a cost! Go, there is none like you! My heart at every throb is always with you.” At this instant Lucilia came into the room, flushed with eagerness; she had on a long full cloak, as though prepared to go out. “Where are you going?” asked Octavia, and the priest paused in the door-way. “I have just returned from the house of Cneius Afranius, and I am now going out with Claudia. I only wanted to hear what news my father had brought of Cornelia.” Octavia told her.