The second time, when mention was incautiously made before him of rumours circulated through Rome of the burning of an unknown Pagan priest, hidden in the temple of Serapis, with vast treasures around him, the old man was seen to start and shudder, and heard to pray for the soul that was now waiting before the dread judgment-seat; to murmur about a vain restoration and a discovery made too late; to mourn over horror that thickened round him, over hope fruitlessly awakened, and bereavement more terrible than mortal had ever suffered before; to entreat that the child, the last left of all, might be spared--with many words more, which ran on themes like these, and which were counted by all who listened to them but as the wanderings of a mind whose higher powers were fatally prostrated by feebleness and grief.
One long hour of the night had already passed away since parent and child had been left together, and neither word nor movement had been audible in the melancholy room.

But, as the second hour began, the girl's eyes unclosed again, and she moved painfully on the couch.
Accustomed to interpret the significance of her slightest actions, Numerian rose and brought her one of the reviving draughts that had been left ready for use.

After she had drunk, when her eyes met her father's fixed on her in mute and mournful inquiry, her lips closed, and formed themselves into an expression which he remembered they had always assumed when, as a little child, she used silently to hold up her face to him to be kissed.

The miserable contrast between what she was now and what she had been them, was beyond the passive endurance, the patient resignation of the spirit-broken old man; the empty cup dropped from his hands, he knelt down by the side of the couch and groaned aloud.
'O father! father!' cried the weak, plaintive voice above him.

'I am dying! Let us remember that our time to be together here grows shorter and shorter, and let us pass it as happily as we can!' He raised his head, and looked up at her, vacant and wistful, forlorn already, as if the death-parting was over.
'I have tried to live humbly and gratefully,' she sighed faintly.