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 removed his grasp from their shoulders, separated them, and locking the hand of each in his cold, bony fingers, began to speak.
His voice was deep and solemn, but his accents, in their hard, unvarying tone, seemed to express no human emotion.

His eyes, far from brightening as he spoke, relapsed into a dull, vacant insensibility.
The connection between the action of speech and the accompanying and explaining action of look which is observable in all men, seemed lost in him.

It was fearful to behold the death-like face, and to listen at the same moment to the living voice.
'Lo! the votaries come to the temple!' murmured the Pagan.