‘I should have mentioned,’ he said, averting his look, ’that the presbyter Andreas and his poor will not be forgotten.  Moreover, many of my slaves will receive their freedom.’

Leander murmured approvingly.  Again he reflected, and again he ventured an inquiry:  Maximus would desire, no doubt, to rest with his glorious ancestors in the mortuary chapel known as the Temple of Probus, by St. Peter’s?  And seeing the emotion this excited in his listener he went on to speak at large of the Anician house—­first among the great families of Rome to embrace Christianity, and distinguished, generation after generation, by their support of the church, which indeed numbered among its Supreme Pontiffs one of their line, the third Felix.  Did not the illustrious father of Maximus lead the Christian senators in their attack upon that lingering shame, the heathen Lupercalia, since so happily supplanted by the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mary?  He, dying—­ added Leander, with an ecstatic smile—­made over to the Apostolic See an estate in Sicily which yielded every year two rich harvests to the widows, the orphans, the sick, and the destitute of Rome.

‘Deacon,’ broke from the hot lips of Maximus, who struggled to raise himself, ’if I do the like, will you swear to me to use your influence, your power, for the protection of my daughter?’

It was the voice of nature in its struggle with the universal doom; reason had little part in the hope with which those fading eyes fixed themselves upon the countenance of the self-possessed churchman.

‘Heaven forbid,’ was Leander’s reply, ’that I should bind myself in such terms to perform an office of friendship, which under any circumstances would be my anxious care.’

‘Even,’ asked Maximus, ‘if she persist in her heresy?’

‘Even so, my dear lord, remembering from whom she springs.  But,’ he added, in a soothing voice, ’let me put your mind at rest.  Trust me, the lady Aurelia will not long cling to her error.  In poverty, in humiliation, she might be obstinate; but as the possessor of wealth—­restored to her due rank—­oh, my gracious lord, be assured that her conversion will soon follow.’

The same thought had occurred to Maximus.  He sighed in profound relief, and regarded the deacon gratefully.

’In that hope I rest.  Give me your promise to befriend her, and ask of me what you will.’

Save for the hours she passed at her father’s side, Aurelia kept a strict retirement, guarded by the three female slaves whom Petronilla had reluctantly assigned to her.  Of them she required no intimate service, having her own attendants, an elderly woman, the nurse of her childhood, who through all changes of fortune had never quitted her, and a younger, half-Goth, half-Italian, who discharged humbler duties.  She occupied a small dwelling apart from the main structure of the villa, but connected with it by a portico:  this was called the House of Proba,