The next day she stole about the house, like the youth of Sais after he had lifted the veil. To Chloe she did not speak a word; it was as though she felt her to be an accomplice and was ashamed. Towards noon Cornelius rode out on horseback, accompanied by Charicles and one of the younger slaves. “How ill you look, child!” he said, as he took leave of Cornelia; “order your litter, and be carried out to the Field of Mars, the fresh air will do you good. I shall be back as it grows dark.--I have some business to attend to at Aricia. Say so, if by any chance I should be asked for.” Cornelia dined in a little room opening out of her own, if a little fruit could be called a meal. As it grew dark, her lover came to see her. All day he had felt the same urgent craving for solitude and meditation as Cornelia. The consciousness, that he had crossed the threshold of a new and unknown life, and had sealed, solemnly and forever, a covenant with a new God, possessed him with irresistible force. He felt that he must clearly face and realize the fact, before he could go forth again into the wild turmoil of city life. Rome, which until lately he had considered as the element in which alone he could live, now watched him with the jealous eye of an informer. Every corner-stone, every column cried mockingly: “Quintus, be on your guard!” Every human countenance threatened betrayal and an ignominious death.--Aye, beware, Quintus, and hide your secret as a murderer hides his crime! By degrees the young man arrived at a clear view of himself and of his position. All that was needful, was calm presence of mind and absolute silence. Not a soul must guess what, on the face of it, was so incredible; no one--if only for his father’s sake. Cornelia alone, that dear one, whose lofty nature had always been marked by what was a truly Nazarene longing for something absolutely divine--Cornelia alone should, by degrees, be admitted to know the great secret, and be won over to the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The idea of not sharing every thought, to the inmost spring of his moral life, with the girl he so devotedly loved, was so intolerable, that he determined to try at once, at least, to sound the depths of her feeling, for some ground where he might, by-and-bye, find anchorage. The fact, that he found Cornelia alone, seemed to him of happy omen; he could talk with her undisturbed. The evening was too cool to allow of their sitting in the peristyle, and Cornelia received her lover in her uncle’s study. Quintus was struck by her silence and uneasy looks; still, this seemed to him to be the very mood in which to speak to her of matters outside and above ordinary life.