At the sound of his voice she started up, and clasping his arm with her
trembling fingers, to arrest his progress, looked affrightedly into his
seared and listless countenance. As she thus gazed on him she appeared
for the first time to recognise him. Fear and astonishment mingled in
her expression with grief and despair as she sunk at his feet, moaning
in tones of piercing entreaty--
'O Ulpius!--if Ulpius you are--have pity on me and take me to my father!
My father! my father! In all the lonely world there is nothing left to
me but my father!'
'Why do you weep to me about your broken lute?' answered Ulpius, with a
dull, unmeaning smile; 'it was not I that destroyed it!'
'They have slain him!' she shrieked distractedly, heedless of the
Pagan's reply. 'I saw them draw their swords on him! See, his blood is
on me--me!--Antonina, whom he protected and loved! Look there; that is
a grave--his grave--I know it! I have never seen him since; he is
down--down there! under the flowers I grew to gather for him! They slew
him; and when I knew it not, they have buried him!--or you--you have
buried him! You have hidden him under the cold garden earth! He is
gone!--Ah, gone, gone--for ever gone!'
And she flung herself again with reckless violence on the grave.
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