The fumes of the wine he had drunk in the night, far from having been, as he imagined, permanently dispersed, again mounted to his head.

He was obliged to lean against the stone table to preserved his equilibrium as he faintly desired the Pagan to shorten their sojourn in his miserable retreat.
Without even noticing the request, Ulpius hurriedly proceeded to erase the drawings on the buttresses and the inscriptions on the table.

Then collecting the fragments of statues and the pieces of linen, he deposited them in a hiding-place in the corner of the apartment.

This done, he returned to the stone against which Vetranio supported himself, and for a few minutes silently regarded the senator with a firm, earnest, and penetrating gaze.
A dark suspicion that he had betrayed himself into the hands of a villain, who was then plotting some atrocious project connected with his safety or honour, began to rise on the senator's bewildered brain as he unwillingly submitted to the penetrating examination of the Pagan's glance.

At that moment, however, the withered lips of the old man slowly parted, and he began to speak.