Thus, in the last act of _Marcus Aurelius_, we get the force of the whole drama, and all the incidence of the directly preceding scene moving behind and through the Emperor's speech from which I shall quote. The play has shown the complicity of Faustina in the plot to depose her husband: we know that she is a wanton and a traitress. But Marcus is ignorant of the truth, and generously unsuspecting. After the death of Cassius, the chief conspirator, Marcus orders an officer to bring all the dead man's papers to him. It is necessary to examine them for the names of accomplices. They are brought in while he is chatting with Faustina; and she knows that they contain certain incriminating letters that she had written. Exposure is imminent--disgrace and probable death for her await the opening of the letters. She tries every ruse that a bold and cunning mentality can suggest to prevent her husband from reading them. She seems about to succeed, but her insistence faintly warning Marcus, she fails after all. He takes up the package and goes away to open it quietly in his tent, and Faustina, believing that in a few minutes he will know all her treachery, drinks poison and dies. Unconscious of this catastrophe, the Emperor is sitting alone in his tent, with the package of letters on a table before him. ... Here, beneath my hand, Are laid the hidden hearts of many men. What shall I read therein? Ingratitude, Lies, envy, spite, the barbed and venomous word Of those that called me Emperor, I called friend; ... Break the seal, and read Which of our subjects, of our intimates, Our friends of many years, are netted here. How thickly fall the shadows in the tent! Almost I fancied, with my tired eyes, I saw Faustina there ... Faustina, you! ..... If I should find _Her_ name among the friends of Cassius? Ah no, Faustina, not such perfidy! The gods must blush at it! Am I grown grey And learnt no wisdom? Though it should be so-- Though yet it cannot be--what's that to me? Am _I_ wronged by it? Yet it cannot be, With that frank brow. I've loved you faithfully; It could not be so.... ... I will not know More than I must of unprofitable things, Lest they should, in the garden of my soul, Nourish rank weeds of hate and bitterness; I will not hate that which I cannot change. (_He drops the papers into a tripod._) Burn! Go into oblivion! The gods Permit themselves to pity good and bad, Giving to each the sunshine and sweet rain, And hiding all things in the mist of years. May I not do as gods do? Burn away, Consume all hate and evil into smoke! I will not know of them; assuredly For me such ills exist not---- (_The body of Faustina is brought in._)