The sun glared down fiercely over her dark figure as she stopped and for
an instant looked stealthily around her. She moved to advance, and
Antonina saw no more. Again she turned to renew her hopeless flight;
and again her father--perceiving only as the mysterious cause of her
dread a solitary woman, who, though she followed, attempted not to
arrest, or even to address them--prepared to accompany her to the last,
in despair of all other chances of securing her safety.
More and more completely did her terror now enchain her faculties, as
she still unconsciously traced her rapid way through the streets that
led to the Tiber. It was not Numerian, not Rome, not daylight in a
great city, that was before her eyes: it was the storm, the
assassination, the night at the farm-house, that she now lived through
over again.
Still the quick flight and the ceaseless pursuit were continued, as if
neither were ever to have an end; but the close of the scene was,
nevertheless, already at hand. During the interval of the passage
through the streets, Numerian's mind had gradually recovered from its
first astonishment and alarm; at length he perceived the necessity of
instant and decisive action, while there was yet time to save Antonina
from sinking under the excess of her own fears.
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