The reader is already acquainted, from her own short and simple
narrative, with the history of the closing hours of her mournful night
vigil by the side of her sinking parent, and with the motives which
prompted her to seek the palace of the senator, and entreat assistance
in despair from one whom she only remembered as the profligate destroyer
of her tranquility under her father's roof. It is now, therefore, most
fitting to follow her on her way back through the palace gardens. No
living creature but herself trod the grassy paths, along which she
hastened with faltering steps--those paths which she dimly remembered to
have first explored when in former days she ventured forth to follow the
distant sounds of Vetranio's lute.
In spite of her vague, heavy sensations of solitude and grief, this
recollection remained painfully present to her mind, unaccountably
mingled with the dark and dreary apprehension which filled her heart as
she hurried onward, until she once more entered her father's dwelling;
and then, as she again approached his couch, every other feeling became
absorbed in a faint, overpowering fear, lest, after all her perseverance
and success in her errand of filial devotion, she might have returned
too late.
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