The high-priest too retired, and shut himself up in his study till dinner-time. The information brought him by Parthenius, and the flight of Cinna and Aurelius more particularly, had been a great shock to him. And then the sight of the young creature, who stood up so bravely for her love--and yet--he could not hesitate--who must give it up forever. That had been a dagger-thrust in his heart. He struggled for firmness, for cold and stern resolve. He told himself that true kindness, in this case, lay in severity and outward hardness; every sign of wavering, every expression of tender impulse, would only make the inevitable harder for his child to bear. The human heart can better endure the sudden extinction of its happiness than its slow decline, fanned by the breath of a faint hope which is too weak to revive the flame of life, and yet too strong to allow it to die out. For many hours this man, who was usually so prompt and decisive, sat bent over his table as if in a trance. If Sextus Furius had not been one of the victims of this nocturnal raid, Titus Claudius would, even now, have arranged his daughter’s betrothal to this suitor before the week was out. The very cruelty of such a proceeding seemed to him wholesome and bracing. But, as it was, Furius too--for some unimaginable reason--was an inmate of the Mamertine prisons. What was to be done? He considered the possibilities of a journey, and remembered that Quintus, the year before, had expressed a purpose some day to pass a few months at Athens. The house of Claudia had many illustrious friends in the Attic capital, who would have welcomed the brother and sister with the greatest pleasure, and have treated them as lovingly and as liberally as their own. But the plan was rejected as soon as it was made. The unfavorable season was at hand; the south-westerly gale, which a few days since had swept over the whole coast of Latium and Campania, had devastated the country south of Antium. Sea-voyages were at an end for the season; no one would venture out to sea but under pressing necessity. Finally, the priest came to the conclusion, that Claudia would best and soonest get over her grief in her parent’s house and the old familiar habits of her daily life; he, therefore, decided on leaving the poor child in peace, when once he had explicitly impressed on her that Aurelius was lost to her forever, and then tacitly treating the matter as settled once for all. The whole family eat their meal in conscious silence: Quintus and Cornelia remained as guests. Claudia begged to be excused; she would join them later, in the sitting-room.