"Barbarian! murderer!" she cried shrilly, thrust his hand away, sprang up, and fled like a frightened doe. Athalaric made no attempt to follow her. "Barbarian! murderer!" he murmured to himself, in great grief, and buried his glowing forehead in his hands. CHAPTER XII. Camilla came home in such extreme excitement, that Daphnidion would not be convinced that she had not seen the nymphs, or even the venerable sylvan god, Picus, himself. But the maiden threw herself with wild emotion into the arms of her alarmed mother. The strife of confused feelings within her resolved itself into a flood of hot tears, and only later was she able to answer Rusticiana's anxious questions. A terrible struggle was taking place in the soul of this child. At the court of Ravenna it had not escaped the growing girl that the dark eyes of the beautiful Athalaric often rested upon her with a strange and dreamy expression, and that he eagerly listened to every tone of her voice. But a suspicion of deeper affection had never entered into her mind. The Prince, reserved and shy, cast down his eyes whenever she met his look with an unembarrassed and inquisitive glance. Were they not both at that time almost children? She did not know how to interpret Athalaric's manner--he scarcely could do so himself--and it had never occurred to her to reflect why she so gladly lived near him; why she liked to follow the bold flights of his thoughts and imaginations, differing so much from those of all other playfellows; why she loved to wander silently through the quiet gardens in the evening-light by the side of the silent boy, who often, in the midst of his reverie, addressed her with abrupt, but always significant, words; whose poetical feelings--the feelings of enthusiastic youth--she so completely understood and appreciated. The tender tissue of this budding inclination was violently torn by the catastrophe of her father's death, and not only gentle sorrow for the murdered man, but glowing hatred of his murderers, took possession of the passionate Roman girl's soul. At all times Boëthius, even when in the height of his favour at court, had displayed a haughty condescension to the barbarism of the Goths, and, since the catastrophe, all Camilla's companions--her mother, her two brothers (who thirsted for vengeance), and the friends of the house--breathed hatred and contempt, not only for the bloody murderer and tyrant, Theodoric, but for all Goths, and particularly for the daughter and grandson of the King, who, in their eyes, shared his guilt because they had not hindered it.