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.