“Ah!” cried Cornelia, “if only these were to be real souls!  But what can we say?  See my Lucretius here; read:  ’I have shown the soul to be formed fine and to be of minute bodies and made up of much smaller first-beginnings than the liquid air, or mist, or smoke.  As you see water, when the vessels are shattered, flow away on every side, and as mist and smoke vanish away into the air, believe that the soul, too, is shed abroad, and perishes much more quickly and dissolves sooner into its first bodies, when once it has been taken out of the limbs of a man and has withdrawn.’  O Quintus, is the thing within me that loves you lighter, more fragile, than smoke?  Shall I blow away, and vanish into nothingness?  It is that which affrights me!”

And Drusus tried as best he might to comfort her, telling her there was no danger that she or he would be dissipated speedily, and that she must not fret her dear head with things that set the sagest greybeards a-wrangling.  Then he told her about the political world, and how in a month at most either every cloud would have cleared away, and Lentulus be in no position to resist the legal claims which Drusus had on the hand of his niece; or, if war came, if fortune but favoured Caesar, Cornelia’s waiting for deliverance would not be for long.  Drusus did not dwell on the alternative presented if civic strife came to arms; he only knew that, come what might, Cornelia could never be driven to become the bride of Lucius Ahenobarbus; and he had no need to exact a new pledge of her faithful devotion.

So at last, like everything terrestrial that is sweet and lovely, the slowly advancing afternoon warned Drusus that for this day, at least, they must separate.

“I will come again to-morrow, or the next day, if Cassandra can so arrange,” said he, tearing himself away.  “But part to-night we must, nor will it make amends to imitate Carbo, who, when he was being led to execution, was suddenly seized with a pain in the stomach, and begged not to be beheaded until he should feel a little better.”

He kissed her, strained her to his breast, and stepped toward the landing-place.  Cappadox had taken the boat out from the moorings to minimize a chance of discovery by some one in the house.  Drusus was just turning for a last embrace, when many voices and the plash of oars sounded below.  Cornelia staggered with dread.

“It’s Ahenobarbus,” she gasped, in a deathly whisper; “he sometimes comes back from Puteoli by boat.  He will murder you when he finds you here!”

“Can’t I escape through the house?”

The words, however, were no sooner out of Drusus’s mouth, than Lucius Ahenobarbus, dressed in the most fashionably cut scarlet lacerna, perfumed and coiffured to a nicety, appeared on the terrace.  Some evil genius had led him straight up without the least delay.