The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864, page 89 by Various Authors
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uth would have leaked out only little by little, so as to be stripped of half of its mortification. But he had called up his slaves. They had entered upon the scene, and would guess at everything, if they did not know it already! The mouths of menials could not be stopped. To-morrow all Rome would know that the imperator Sergius, whose wife had been the wonder of the whole city for her virtue and constancy, had been deceived by her, and for a low-born slave! Herein, for the moment, seemed to lie half the disgrace. Had it been a man of rank and celebrity like himself--but a slave! And how would he dare to look the world in the face--he who had been proud of his wife's unsullied reputation, even when he had most neglected her, and who had so often boasted over his happy lot to those who, having the reputation of being less fortunate, had complacently submitted themselves to bear with indifference a disgrace which, at that age, seemed to be almost the universal doom!
Frantically revolving these matters, he raged up and down the apartment for some moments, while Leta watched him from her obscure corner. When would it be time for her to advance and try her art of soothing? Not yet; for while that paroxysm of rage lasted, he would be as likely to strike her as to listen. Once he approached within a few feet of her, and, as she believed herself observed, she trembled and crouched behind a vase. He had not seen her, but his eye fell upon the vase, and with one blow he rolled it off its pedestal, and let it fall shattered upon, the marble floor. Was it simply because the costly toy stood in his way? Or was it that he remembered it had been a favorite of Ænone? One fragment of the vase, leaping up, struck Leta upon the foot and wounded her, but she dared not cry out. She rather crouched closer behind the empty pedestal, and drew a long breath of relief as, after a moment, he turned away.
At last the violence of his passion seemed to have expended itself, and he sank upon the lounge, and, burying his fac