Is this the performance of your promise?
Do you think that I will direct your desired restoration of the gods of old for this?
If evil comes to Antonina through your treachery, sooner than assist in your secret projects, I would see you and your accursed deities all burning together in the Christians' hell! Where is the girl, you slave?
Villain, where was your vigilance, when you let that man surprise us at our first interview ?' He turned towards Numerian as he spoke.

Trouble and emergency gift the faculties with a more than mortal penetration.

Every word that he had uttered had eaten its burning way into the father's heart.

Hours of narrative could not have convinced him how fatally he had been deceived, more thoroughly than the few hasty expressions he had just heard.

No word passed his lips--no action betrayed his misery.