Progress to the Sepulchre.

It was noon of the same day—a warm and sunny noon, in which the birds and the breeze equally counseled pleasure and repose. The viands stood before our Coelius and his wife, the choicest fruits of Italy, and cates which might not, in later days, have misbeseemed the favorite chambers of Lucullus. The goblet was lifted in the hands of both, and the heart of Aurelia felt almost as cheerful as the expression on her face. It was the reflection in the face of her husband. His brow was gloomy no longer. The tones of his voice were neither cold, nor angry, nor desponding. A change—she knew not why—had come over his spirit, and he smiled, nay, laughed out, in the very exultation of a new life. Aurelia conjectured nothing of this so sudden change. Enough that it was grateful to her soul. She was too happy in its influence to inquire into its cause. What heart that is happy does inquire? She quaffed the goblet at his bidding—quaffed it to the dregs—and her eye gleamed delighted and delightfully upon his, even as in the first hours of their union. She had no apprehensions—dreaded nothing sinister—and did not perceive that ever, at the close of his laughter, there was a convulsive quiver—a sort of hysterical sobbing, that he seemed to try to subdue in vain. She noticed not this, nor the glittering, almost spectral brightness of his glance, as, laughing tumultuously, he still kept his gaze intently fixed upon her. She was blind to all things but the grateful signs of his returning happiness and attachment. Once more the goblet was lifted. “To Turmes (Mercury) the conductor,” cried the husband. The wife drank unwittingly—for still her companion smiled upon her, and spoke joyfully, and she was as little able as willing to perceive that any thing occult occured in his expression.

“Have you drank?” he asked.

She smiled, and laid the empty goblet before him.

“Come, then, you shall now behold the picture. You will now be prepared to understand it.”

They rose together, but another change had overspread his features. The gayety had disappeared from his face. It was covered with a calm that was frightful. The eye still maintained all its eager intensity, but the lips were fixed in the icy mould of resolution. They declared a deep, inflexible purpose. There was a corresponding change in his manner and deportment. But a moment before he was all life, grace, gayety and great flexibility; he was now erect, majestic, and commanding in aspect, with a lordly dignity in his movement, that declared a sense of a high duty to be done. Aurelia was suddenly impressed with misgivings. The change was too sudden not to startle. Her doubts and apprehensions were not lessened when, instead of conducting her to the studio, where she expected to see the picture, he led the way through the vestibule and into the open court of the palace. They lingered but for a moment at the entrance, and she then beheld his brother Aruns approaching. To him she gave not a look.

“All is right,” said the latter.

“Enter!” was the reply of Coelius; and as the brother disappeared within the vestibule, the two moved forward through the outer gate. They passed through a lovely wood, shady and hidden, through which, subdued by intervening leaves, gleamed only faintly the bright, clear sun of Italy. From under the huge chestnuts, on either hand, the majestic gods of Etruria extended their guiding and endowing hands. Tina, or Jupiter, Aplu, or Apollo, Erkle, Turmes, and the rest, all conducting them along the via sacre, which led from the palaces to the tombs of every proud Etruscan family. They entered the solemn grove which was dedicated to night and silence, and were about to ascend the gradual slopes by which the tumulus was approached. Then it was that the misgivings of Aurelia took a more serious form. She felt a vague but oppressive fear. She hesitated.

“My Coelius,” she exclaimed, “whither do we go. Is not this the passage to the house of silence?”

“Do you not know it?” he demanded quickly, and fixing upon her a keen inquiring glance. “Come!” he continued, “it is there that I have fixed the picture!”

“Alas! my Coelius, wherefore! It is upon this picture that you have been so deeply engaged. It has made you sad—it has left us both unhappy. Let us not go—let me not see it!” Her agitation was greatly increased. He saw it, and his face put on a look of desperate exultation.

“Ay, but thou must see it—thou shalt look upon it and behold my triumph, my greatest triumph in art, and perhaps my last. I shall never touch pencil more, and wilt thou refuse to look upon my last and noblest work. Fie! this were a wrong to me, and a great shame in thee, Aurelia. Come! the toil of which thou think’st but coldly, has brought me peace rather than sadness. It has made of death a thing rather familiar than offensive. If it has deprived me of hopes, it has left me without terrors!”

“Deprived you of hopes, my Coelius,” said the wife, still lingering, and in mortal terror.

“Even so!”

“And, wherefore, O, my husband, wherefore?”

“Speak not, woman! See you not that we are within the shadow of the tomb?”

“Let us not approach—let us go hence!” she exclaimed entreatingly, with increasing agitation.

“Ay, shrink’st thou!” he answered; “well thou may’st. The fathers of the Pomponii, for two thousand years, are now floating around us on their sightless wings. They wonder that a Roman woman should draw nigh to the dwellings of our ancient Lucumones.”

“A Roman woman!” she exclaimed reproachfully. “My Coelius, wherefore this?”

“Art thou not?”

“I am thy wife.”

“Art sure of that?”

“As the gods live and look upon us, I am thine, this hour and forever!”

“May the gods judge thee, woman,” he responded slowly, as he paused at the gate of the mausoleum, and fixed his eyes intently upon her. Hers were raised to heaven, with her uplifted hands. She did not weep, and her grief was still mixed with a fearful agitation.

“Let us now return, my Coelius!”

“What, wilt thou not behold the picture?”

“Not now—at another season. I could not look upon it now!”

“Alas! woman, but this cannot be. Thou must behold it now or never. Hope not to escape. Enter! I have a tale to tell thee, and a sight to show thee within, which thou canst not hear or see hereafter. Enter!” As he spoke, he applied the key to the stone leaf, and the door slowly revolved upon the massy pivots. She turned and would have fled, but he grasped her by the wrist, and moved toward the entrance. She carried her freed hand to her forehead—parted the hair from her eyes, and raised them pleadingly to heaven. Resistance she saw was vain. Her secret was discovered. She prepared to enter, but slowly. “Enter! Dost thou fear now,” cried her husband, “when commanded? Hast thou not, thou, a Roman, ventured already to penetrate these awful walls, given to silence and the dead—and on what mission? Enter, as I bid thee!”

——