No thoughts of horror and
despair were suggested to her as she now looked on the farm-house scene.
Hers was not the grief which shrinks selfishly from all that revives the
remembrance of the dead: to her, their influence over the memory was a
grateful and a guardian influence that gave a better purpose to the
holiest life, and a nobler nature to the purest thoughts.
Thus they were sitting by the grave, sad yet content; footsore already
on the pilgrimage of life, yet patient to journey farther if they
might--when an unusual tumult, a noise of rolling wheels, mingled with a
confused sound of voices, was heard in the lane behind them. They
looked round, and saw that Vetranio was approaching them alone through
the wicket-gate.
He came forward slowly; the stealthy poison instilled by the Banquet of
Famine palpably displayed its presence within him as the clear sunlight
fell on his pale, wasted face. He smiled kindly as he addressed
Antonina; but the bodily pain and mental agitation which that smile was
intended to conceal, betrayed themselves in his troubled voice as he
spoke.
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