CHAPTER 19.
THE GUARDIAN RESTORED.
Not long is the new-made grave left unwatched to the solemn guardianship of Solitude and Night.

More than a few minutes have scarcely elapsed since it was dug, yet already human footsteps press its yielding surface, and a human glance scans attentively its small and homely mound.
But it is not Antonina, whom he loved; it is not Goisvintha, through whose vengeance he was lost, who now looks upon the earth above the young warrior's corpse.

It is a stranger, an outcast; a man lost, dishonoured, abandoned--it is the solitary and ruined Ulpius who now gazes with indifferent eyes upon the peaceful garden and the eloquent grave.
In the destinies of woe committed to the keeping of the night, the pagan had been fatally included.

The destruction that had gone forth against the body of the young man who lay beneath the earth had overtaken the mind of the old man who stood over his simple grave.

The frame of Ulpius, with all its infirmities, was still there, but the soul of ferocious patience and unconquerable daring that had lighted it grandly in its ruin was gone.