As soon as the Pagan appeared before him, a sensible change took place in Vetranio. The presence of Ulpius in the chamber was a positive relief to the senator's perturbed faculties, after the mysterious, overpowering influence that the moral command expressed in the mere presence of the father and the master of the house, at such an hour, had exercised over them. Over Ulpius he had an absolute right, Ulpius was his dependant; and he determined, therefore, to extort from the servant whom he despised an explanation of the mysteries in the conduct of the master whom he feared, and the daughter whom he began to doubt. 'Where is Antonina?' he cried, starting as if from a trance, and advancing fiercely towards the treacherous Pagan. 'She has left the room--she must have taken refuge with you.' With a slow and penetrating gaze Ulpius looked round the apartment. A faint agitation was perceptible in his livid countenance, but he uttered not a word. The senator's face became pale and red with alternate emotions of apprehension and rage. He seized the Pagan by the throat, his eyes sparkled, his blood boiled, he began to suspect even then that Antonina was lost to him for ever. 'I ask you again where is she?' he shouted in a voice of fury. 'If through this night's work she is lost or harmed, I will revenge it on you. 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. He stood before the spoilers of his home, changed in an instant from the courageous enthusiast to the feeble, helpless, heart-broken man. Though all the ferocity of his old Roman blood had been roused in Vetranio, as he threatened Ulpius, the father's look of cold, silent, frightful despair froze it in his young veins in an instant. His heart was still the impressible heart of youth; and, struck for the first time in his life with emotions of horror and remorse, he advanced a step to offer such explanation and atonement as he best might, when the voice of Ulpius suspended his intentions, and made him pause to listen.