Swayed by the dread and supernatural influences of his disease, the madman passed back in an instant over the dark valley of life's evil pilgrimage to the long-quitted precincts of his boyish home.

While in bodily presence he stood in the place of his last crimes, the outcast of reason and humanity, in mental consciousness he lay in his mother's arms, as he had lain there ere yet he had departed to the temple at Alexandria; and his heart communed with her heart, and his eyes looked on her as they had looked before his father's fatal ambition had separated for ever parent and child! 'Mother!--come back, mother!' he whispered.

'I was not asleep: I saw you when you came in, and sat by my bedside, and wept over me when you kissed me! Come back, and sit by me still! I am going away, far away, and may never hear your voice again! How happy we should be, mother, if I stayed with you always! But it is my father's will that I should go to the temple in another country, and live there to be a priest; and his will must be obeyed.

I may never return; but we shall not forget one another! I shall remember your words when we used to talk together happily, and you shall still remember mine!' Hardly had the first sentence been uttered by Ulpius when Antonina felt her father's whole frame suddenly tremble at her side.

She turned her eyes from the doorway, on which they had hitherto been fixed, and looked on him.