Lost, for an instant, even the recollection that Goisvintha might still
be watching her opportunity from without, calling despairingly on her
father, and vainly striving to raise him from the ground, Antonina
remembered not, in the overwhelming trial of the moment, the revelations
of Numerian's past life that had been disclosed to her in the days when
the famine was at its worst in Rome. The name of 'Cleander', which she
had then heard her father pronounce, as the name that he had abandoned
when he separated himself from the companions of his sinful choice,
passed unheeded by her when the Pagan unconsciously uttered it. She saw
the whole scene but as a fresh menace of danger, as a new vision of
terror, more ominous of ill than all that had preceded it.
Thick as was the darkness in which the lulling and involuntary memories
of the past had enveloped the perceptions of Ulpius, the father's
piercing cry of anguish seemed to have penetrated it with a sudden ray
of light. The madman's half-closed eyes opened instantly and fixed,
dreamily at first, on the altar of idols.
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