Awed and astounded, as if he beheld an apparition from the tomb,
Vetranio looked upon this young girl--whom he had loved with the least
selfish passion that ever inspired him; whom he had lamented as long
since lost and dead with the sincerest grief he had ever felt; whom he
now saw standing before him at the very moment ere he doomed himself to
death, altered, desolate, supplicating--with emotions which held him
speechless in wonder, and even in dread. While he still gazed upon her
in silence, he heard her speaking to him in low, melancholy, imploring
accents, which fell upon his ear, after the voices of terror and
desperation that had risen around him throughout the night, like tones
never addressed to it before.
'Numerian, my father, is sinking under the famine,' she began; 'if no
help is given to him, he may die even before sunrise! You are rich and
powerful; I have come to you, having nothing now but his life to live
for, to beg sustenance for him!' She paused, overpowered for the
moment, and bent her eyes wistfully on the senator's face.
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