You cannot have forgotten that it
was I who taught you to compose the Nightingale Sauce--or, no--let me
rather say to play upon the lute. Love, music, pleasure, all await you
in the arms of your attached Vetranio. Your eloquent silence speaks
encouragement to my heart. Beloved Anto--'
Here the senator suddenly paused; for the eyes of the girl, which had
hitherto been fixed on him with the same expression of blank dismay that
had characterised them from the first, slowly moved in the direction of
the door. The instant afterwards a slight noise caught Vetranio's ear,
and Antonina shuddered so violently as he pressed her to his side that
he felt it through his whole frame. Slowly and unwillingly he withdrew
his gaze from the pale yet lovely countenance on which it had been
fixed, and looked up.
At the open door, pale, silent, motionless, stood the master of the
house.
Incapable, from the confusion of his ideas, of any other feeling than
the animal instinct of self-defence, Vetranio no sooner beheld
Numerian's figure than he rose, and drawing a small dagger from his
bosom, attempted to advance on the intruder.
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