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The Emperor is taking a new wife, my lord! [He hands him some papers.] Read, read, noble Caesar; these letters will leave you no room for doubt.

[Seizing the papers, and reading.] Yes, by the light and might of Helios!

Oh that I had dared to speak sooner!

[Still reading.] He take a woman to wife! Constantius,—that dwindling shadow of a man! Faustina,—what is this?—young, scarcely nineteen,—a daughter ofah! a daughter of that insolent tribe. Therefore, of course, a zealous Christian woman. [He folds the papers together.] You are right, Sallust; his decay gives no room for hope. What though he be decrepit, dying,—what of that? Is not Faustina pious. An annunciating angel will appear; or even; ha-ha!—in short,—by some means or other,—a young Caesar will be forthcoming, and thus

Delay means ruin.

This move has long been planned in all secrecy, Sallust! Ah, now all the riddles are solved. Helena, 'twas not, as I conceived, her heedless tongue that destroyed her