The very mystery enveloping her story, which would have excited the
suspicion or contempt of more civilised men, aroused in him no other
emotions than those of wonder and compassion. No feelings of a lower
nature than these entered his heart towards the girl. She was safe
under the protection of the enemy and the barbarian, after having been
lost through the interference of the Roman and the senator.
To the simple perceptions of the Goth, the discovery of so much
intelligence united to such extreme youth, of so much beauty doomed to
such utter loneliness, was the discovery of an apparition that dazzled,
and not of a woman who charmed him. He could not even have touched the
hand of the helpless creature, who now reposed under his tent, unless
she had extended it to him of her own accord. He could only think--with
a delight whose excess he was far from estimating himself--on this
solitary mysterious being who had come to him for shelter and for aid;
who had awakened in him already new sources of sensation; and who seemed
to his startled imagination to have suddenly twined herself for ever
about the destinies of his future life.
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