onsibility of
destroying the happiness of a parent who was really virtuous, and a
child who was truly innocent. To a man, the business of whose whole
life was to procure for himself a heritage of unalloyed pleasure, whose
sole occupation was to pamper that refined sensuality which the habits
of a life had made the very material of his heart, by diffusing luxury
and awakening smiles wherever he turned his steps, the mere mental
disquietude attending the ill-success of his intrusion into Numerian's
dwelling, was as painful in its influence, as the bitterest remorse
that could have afflicted a more highly-principled mind. He now,
therefore, instituted the search after Antonina, and expressed his
contrition to her father, from a genuine persuasion that nothing but
the completest atonement for the error he had committed, could restore
to him that luxurious tranquility, the loss of which had, as he had
himself expressed it, rendered him deaf to the deliberations of the
Senate, and regardless of the invasion of the Goths.

'Tell me,' he continued, after a pause, 'whither has Ulpius betaken
himself? It is necessary that he should be discovered. He may
enlighten us upon the place of Antonina's retreat. He shall be secured
and questioned.'

'He left me suddenly; I saw him as I stood at the window, mix with the
multitude in the street, but I know not whither he is gone,' replied
Numerian; and a tremor passed over his whole frame as he spoke of the
remorseless Pagan.

Again there was a short silence. The grief of the broken-spirited
father, possessed in its humility and despair, a voice of rebuke,
before which the senator, careless and profligate as he was,
instinctively quailed. For some time he endeavoured in vain to combat
the silencing and reproving influence, exerted over him by the very
presence of the sorrowing man whom he had so fatally wronged. At
length, after an interval, he recovered self-possession enough to
address to Numerian some further expressions of consolation and hope;
but he spoke to ears that listened not. The father had relapsed into
his mournful abstraction; and when the senator paused, he merely
muttered to himself--'She is lost! Alas, she is lost for ever!'

'No, she is not lost for ever,' cried Vetranio, warmly. 'I have wealth
and power enough to cause her to be sought for to the ends of the
earth! Ulpius shall be secured and questioned--imprisoned, tortured, if
it is necessary. Your dau