e, as a ray of light from the doorway floated over it.
Instantly his arm remained outstretched and rigid, then it dropped to
his side, and the expression of horror on the face of the child became
reflected, as it were, on the face of the parent. Neither moved under
the hand of the dweller in the temple when he laid it heavily on each,
and both stood before him speechless as himself.

CHAPTER 25.

THE TEMPLE AND THE CHURCH.

It was Ulpius. The Pagan was changed in bearing and countenance as
well as in apparel. He stood more firm and upright; a dull, tawny hue
overspread his face; his eyes, so sunken and lustreless in other days,
were now distended and bright with the glare of insanity. It seemed as
if his bodily powers had renewed their vigour, while his mental
faculties had declined towards their ruin.

No human eye had ever beheld by what foul and secret means he had
survived through the famine, on what unnatural sustenance he had
satisfied the cravings of inexorable hunger; but there, in his gloomy
shelter, the madman and the outcast had lived and moved, and suddenly
and strangely strengthened, after the people of the city had exhausted
all their united responses, lavished in vain all their united wealth,
and drooped and died by thousands around him!

His grasp still lay heavy on the father and daughter, and still both
confronted him--silent, as if death-struck by his gaze; motionless, as
if frozen at his touch. His presence was exerting over them a fatal
fascination. The power of action, suspended in Antonina as she entered
their ill-chosen refuge, was now arrested in Numerian also; but with
him no thought of the enemy in the street had any part, at this moment,
in the resistless influence which held him helpless before the enemy in
the temple.

It was a feeling of deeper awe and darker horror. For now, as he
looked upon the hideous features of Ulpius, as he saw the forbidden
robe of priesthood in which the Pagan was arrayed, he beheld not only
the traitor who had successfully plotted against the prosperity of his
household, but the madman as well,--the moral leper of the whole human
family--the living Body and the dead Soul--the disinherited of that
Divine Light of Life which it is the awful privilege of mortal man to
share with the angels of God.

He still clasped Antonina to his side, but it was unconsciously. To
all outward appearance he was helpless as his helpless child, when
Ulpius slowly