“He is dead,” he said in a few minutes.  “Cover his face, Master.”

Arsinoe and the children broke out afresh, and Hadrian glanced down at them with annoyance.  When his eye fell on Arsinoe, whose costly robe, merely pinned and slightly stitched together had come undone with the vehemence of her movements and were hanging as flapping rags in tumbled disorder, he was disgusted with the gaudy fluttering trumpery which contrasted so painfully with the grief of the wearer, and turning his back on the fair girl he quitted the chamber of misery.

Gabinius followed him with a hideous smirk.  He had directed the Emperor’s attention to the mosaic pavement in the steward’s room, and had shamelessly accused Keraunus of having offered to sell him a work that belonged to the palace, contrasting his conduct with his own rectitude.  Now the calumniated man was dead, and the truth could never come to light; this was necessarily a satisfaction to the miserable man, but he derived even greater pleasure from the reflection that Arsinoe could not now fill the part of Roxana, and that consequently there was once more a possibility that it might devolve on his daughter.

Hadrian walked on in front of him, silent and thoughtful.  Gabinius followed him into his writing-room, and there said with fulsome smoothness: 

“Ah, great Caesar, thus do the gods punish with a heavy hand the crimes of the guilty.”

Hadrian did not interrupt him, but he looked him keenly and enquiringly in the face, and then said, gravely, but coolly: 

“It seems to me, man, that I should do well to break off my connection with you, and to give some other dealer the commissions which I proposed to entrust to you.”

“Caesar!” stammered Gabinius, “I really do not know—­”

“But I do know,” interrupted the Emperor.  “You have attempted to mislead me, and throw your own guilt on the shoulders of another.”

“I—­great Caesar?  I have attempted—­” began the Ligurian, while his pinched features turned an ashy grey.  “You accused the steward of a dishonorable trick,” replied Hadrian.  “But I know men well, and I know that no thief ever yet died of being called a scoundrel.  It is only undeserved disgrace that can cost a man’s life.”

“Keraunus was full-blooded, and the shock when he learnt that you were Caesar—­”

“That shock accelerated the end no doubt,” interrupted the monarch, “but the mosaic in the steward’s room is worth a million of sesterces, and now I have seen enough to be quite sure that you are not the man to save your money when a work like that mosaic is offered you for sale—­be the circumstances what they may.  If I see the case rightly, it was Keraunus who refused your demand that he should resign to you the treasure in his charge.  Certainly, that was the case exactly!  Now, leave me.  I wish to be alone.”

Gabinius retired with many bows, walking backwards to the door, and then turned his back on the palace of Lochias muttering many impotent curses as he went.