Her heart swelled within
her, her breath seemed suddenly arrested in her bosom, as she trod the
garden path and ascended the steps beyond. The door at the top was
ajar. With a last effort she thrust it open, and stood once more--
unaided and unwelcomed, yet hopeful of consolation, of pardon, of love--
within her first and last sanctuary, the walls of her home!
CHAPTER 21. FATHER AND CHILD.
Forsaken as it appears on an outward view, during the morning of which
we now write, the house of Numerian is yet not tenantless. In one of
the sleeping apartments, stretched on his couch, with none to watch by
its side, lies the master of the little dwelling. We last beheld him on
the scene mingled with the famishing congregation in the Basilica of St.
John Lateran, still searching for his child amid the confusion of the
public distribution of food during the earlier stages of the misfortunes
of besieged Rome. Since that time he has toiled and suffered much; and
now the day of exhaustion, long deferred, the hours of helpless
solitude, constantly dreaded, have at length arrived.
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