e
repaid me by plotting against my daughter and deceiving me! If your
end was to harm me by assailing my child's happiness and honour you
have succeeded! If you would banish me from Rome, if you would plunge
me into obscurity, to serve some mysterious ambition of your own, you
may dispose of me as you will! I bow before the terrible power of your
treachery! I will renounce whatever you command, if you will restore
me to my child! I am helpless and miserable; I have neither heart nor
strength to seek her myself! You, who know all things and can dare all
dangers, may restore her to pardon and bless me, if you will!
Remember, whoever you really are, that you were once helpless and
alone, and that you are still old, like me! Remember that I have
promised to abandon to you whatever you desire! Remember that no
woman's voice can cheer me, no woman's heart feel for me, now that I am
old and lonely, but my daughter's! I have guessed from the words of
the nobleman whom you serve, what are the designs you cherish and the
faith you profess; I will neither betray the one nor assault the other!
I thought that my labours for the Church were more to me than anything
on earth, but now, that through my fault, my daughter is driven from
her father's roof, I know that she is dearer to me than the greatest of
my designs; I must gain her pardon; I must win back her affection
before I die! You are powerful and can recover her! Ulpius! Ulpius!'

As he spoke, the Christian knelt at the Pagan's feet. It was terrible
to see the man of affection and integrity thus humbled before the man
of heartlessness and crime.

Ulpius turned to behold him, then without a word he raised him from the
ground, and thrusting him to the window, pointed with flashing eyes to
the wide view without.

The sun had arisen high in the heaven and beamed in dazzling brilliancy
over Rome and the suburbs. A vague, fearful, mysterious desolation
seemed to have suddenly overwhelmed the whole range of dwellings beyond
the walls. No sounds rose from the gardens, no population idled in the
streets. The ramparts on the other hand were crowded at every visible
point with people of all ranks, and the distant squares and
amphitheatres of the city itself, swarmed like ant-hills to the eye
with the crowds that struggled within them. Confused cries and strange
wild noises rose at all points from these masses of human beings. The
whole of Rome seemed the prey of a vast