“No less a man than the astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus referred me to him.”

“The best of recommendation.”

“Well, then, I commissioned Ammonius to cast the horoscope for Verus during the past night and he brought it to me with an explanatory key.  Here it is.”

The Emperor hastily seized the tablet which Sabina held out to him, and as he attentively examined the forecasts, arranged in order according to the hours, he said: 

“Quite right.  That of course did not escape me!  Well done, exactly the same as my own observations—­but here—­stay—­here comes the third hour, at the beginning of which I was interrupted.  Eternal gods! what have we here?”

The Emperor held the wax tablet prepared by Aminonius at arm’s length from his eyes and never parted his lips again till he had come to the end of the last hour of the night.  Then he dropped the hand that held the horoscope, saying with a shudder: 

“A hideous destiny.  Horace was right in saying the highest towers fall with the greatest crash.”

“The tower of which you speak,” said Sabina, “is that darling of fortune of whom you are afraid.  Vouchsafe then to Verus a brief space of happiness before the horrible end you foresee for him.”

While she spoke Hadrian sat with his eyes thoughtfully fixed on the ground, and then, standing in front of his wife, he replied: 

“If no sinister catastrophe falls upon this man, the stars and the fate of men have no more to do with one another than the sea with the heart of the desert, than the throb of men’s pulses with the pebbles in the brook.  If Ammonius has erred ten times over still more than ten signs remain on this tablet, hostile and fatal to the praetor.  I grieve for Verus—­but the state suffers with the sovereign’s misfortunes.—­This man can never be my successor.”

“No?” asked Sabina rising from her couch.  “No?  Not when you have seen that your own star outlives his?  Not though a glance at this tablet shows you that when he is nothing but ashes the world will still continue long to obey your nod?”

“Compose yourself and give me time.—­Yes, I still say not even so.”

“Not even so,” repeated Sabina sullenly.  Then, collecting herself, she asked in a tone of vehement entreaty: 

“Not even so—­not even if I lift my hands to you in supplication and cry in your face that you and Fate have grudged me the blessing, the happiness, the crown and aim of a woman’s life, and I must and I will attain it; I must and I will once, if only for a short time, hear myself called by some dear lips by the name which gives the veriest beggar-woman with her infant in her arms preeminence above the Empress who has never stood by a child’s cradle.  I must and I will, before I die, be a mother, be called mother and be able to say, ‘my child, my son—­our son.’” And as she spoke she sobbed aloud and covered her face with her hands.