'Why did I tear down the strong brick-work and go forth into the dark suburbs ?' He paused, and for a few moments struggled with his purposeless and disconnected thoughts; but a blank, a darkness, an annihilation overwhelmed Alaric and the Gothic camp, which he vainly endeavoured to disperse.

He sighed bitterly to himself--'It is gone!' and still grasping Antonina by the hand, drew her after him to the garden gate.
'Leave me!' she shrieked, as he passed onward into the pathway that led to the high-road.

'Oh, be merciful, and leave me to die where he has died!' 'Peace! or I will rend you limb by limb, as I rent the stones from the wall when I passed through it!' he whispered to her in fierce accents, as she struggled to escape him.

'You shall return with me to Rome! You shall walk in the track that I have made in the rifted brick-work!' Terror, anguish, exhaustion, overpowered her weak efforts.

Her lips moved, partly in prayer and partly in ejaculation; but she spoke in murmurs only, as she mechanically suffered the Pagan to lead her onward by the hand.
They paced on under the waning starlight, over the cold, lonely road, and through the dreary and deserted suburbs,--a fearful and discordant pair! Coldly, obediently, impassively, as if she were walking in a dream, the spirit-broken girl moved by the side of her scarce-human leader.