ess pursuit, he resolved to secure this place
for Antonina, as a temporary refuge at least; while standing before it,
he should oblige the woman to declare her purpose, if she followed them
even there. In a moment he had begun the ascent of the steps, with the
exhausted girl by his side. Arrived at the summit, he guided her
before him into the doorway, and stopped on the threshold to look round
again. Goisvintha was nowhere to be seen.

Not duped by the woman's sudden disappearance into the belief that she
had departed from the street--persisting in his resolution to lead his
daughter to a place of repose, where she might most immediately feel
herself secure, and might therefore most readily recover her
self-possession, Numerian drew Antonina with him into the temple. He
lingered there for a moment, ere he departed to watch the street from
the portico outside.

The light in the building was dim,--it was admitted only from a small
aperture in the roof, and through the narrow doorway, where it was
intercepted by the overhanging bulk of the outer portico. A crooked
pile of dark heavy-looking substances on the floor, rose high towards
the ceiling in the obscure interior. Irregular in form, flung together
one over the other in strange disorder, for the most part dusky in hue,
yet here and there gleaming at points with a metallic brightness, these
objects presented a mysterious, indefinite, and startling appearance.
It was impossible, on a first view of their confused arrangement, to
discover what they were, or to guess for what purpose they could have
been pile together on the floor of a deserted temple. From the moment
when they had first attracted Numerian's observation, his attention was
fixed on them, and as he looked a faint thrill of suspicion--vague,
inexplicable, without apparent cause or object--struck chill to his
heart.

He had moved a step forward to examine the hidden space at the back of
the pile, when his further advance was instantly stopped by the
appearance of a man who walked forth from it dressed in the floating,
purple-edged robe and white fillet of the Pagan priests. Before either
father or daughter could speak, even before they could move to depart,
he stepped up to them, and, placing his hand on the shoulder of each,
confronted them in silence.

At the moment when the stranger approached, Numerian raised his hand to
thrust him back, and, in so doing, fixed his eyes on the man's
countenanc