He found Numerian and Antonina in the garden when he entered
it. The girl had been carried there daily in a litter since her
recovery, and her father had followed. They were never separated now;
the old man, when his first absorbing anxiety for her was calmed,
remembered again more distinctly the terrible disclosure in the temple,
and the yet more terrible catastrophe that followed it, and he sought
constant refuge from the horror of the recollection in the presence of
his child.
The freedman, during his interview with the father and daughter,
observed, for once, an involuntary and unfeigned respect; but he spoke
briefly, and left them together again almost immediately. Humble and
helpless as they were, they awed him; they looked, thought, and spoke
like beings of another nature than his; they were connected, he knew not
how, with the mystery of the grave in the garden. He would have been
self-possessed in the presence of the Emperor himself, but he was uneasy
in theirs. So he retired to the more congenial scene of the public
festival which was in the immediate neighbourhood of the farm-house, to
await the hour of his patron's arrival, and to perplex himself afresh by
a re-perusal of Vetranio's letter.
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