The chance of vengeance last expected was the chance that had first
arrived. A vague, oppressing sensation of awe mingled with the triumph
at her heart--a supernatural guidance seemed to be directing her with
fell rapidity, through every mortal obstacle, to the climax of her
revenge!
She screened herself behind the people; she watched the girl from the
most distant point; but concealment was now vain--their eyes had met.
The robe had slipped aside when she suddenly stepped forward, and in
that moment Antonina had seen her.
Numerian, moving slowly with his daughter through the crowd, felt her
hand tighten round his, and saw her features stiffen into sudden
rigidity; but the change was only for an instant. Ere he could speak,
she caught him by the arm, and drew him forward with convulsive energy.
Then, in accents hardly articulate, low, breathless, unlike her wonted
voice, he heard he exclaim, as she struggled on with him, 'She is
there--there behind us! to kill me, as she killed him! Home! home!'
Exhausted already, through long weakness and natural infirmity, by the
rough contact of the crowd, bewildered by Antonina's looks and actions,
and by the startling intimation of unknown peril, conveyed to him in her
broken exclamations of affright, Numerian's first impulse, as he hurried
onward by her side, led him to entreat protection and help from the
surrounding populace.
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