Romanus forgot that such love affairs were apt to entail tragic consequences for the superfluous man. As Zoe’s passion increased, he found himself suffering from an alarming and mysterious illness. His hair fell out in patches, his breathing was laboured, his face--a more significant symptom in an old man like Romanus--became livid and puffy. Whether this illness was really due to a slow poison, and whether the poison was administered by John or Zoe, are points which we must leave as we find them in the chronicles--uncertain. Since there is very little doubt that Romanus was murdered in the end, the theory of poison is not reckless; but Romanus was aged and worn, and the illness may have been natural. However that may be, Romanus lingered in a frightful condition until Holy Thursday of the year 1041. On that sacred day Romanus distributed to the Senators the ceremonious gifts prescribed in the ritual, and retired to the bath. From the bath he was presently removed in a dying condition to his bed. However possible it may be that he had had a serious attack of his illness in the bath, we cannot easily ignore the persistent statement that men entered the bathroom, and either strangled the Emperor or held his head under the water. Psellus gives this as a rumour, but even he seems to believe it. Both Michael and John are accused of the murder, and it is left uncertain whether Zoe was privy to the plot. Her immediate conduct will not dispose us to be eager to clear her memory of the suspicion, but we may be sure that the monk John was the soul of the plot. Zoe came, with ostentatious (the chronicler says feigned) tears, to see that her husband was really dead or dying, though she did not await the end, which occurred soon afterwards. When we learn that she announced her intention of marrying Michael _the same evening_ we are disposed to see in her an element of cold-blooded calculation which does not very well assort with the character we have given her. It would probably be much more correct to conceive her as nervous and confused, and simply yielding to the dictation of the monk John. Her father’s eunuchs, who had remained in her service, begged her to wait some time, but John bullied and threatened, and Michael was forthwith decked in the dead man’s robes and placed beside Zoe in the gold-roofed hall. The patriarch was summoned to the palace and curtly ordered to crown Michael and marry him at once to the very recent widow, in the presence of the assembled Senators. The whole scene is so repulsive that we need not hesitate to accept the last touch given to it in the chronicles. The archbishop hesitated, but a present of a hundred pounds in gold from John removed his scruples, and he invoked the blessing of God on the new imperial marriage. [Illustration: THE EMPRESS ZÖE FROM ‘CONSTANTINOPLE’ BY E. A. GROSVENOR]