plished in her position broke the spell
that its former stillness and beauty had unconsciously wrought to
restrain the unhallowed ardour of the profligate Roman. He now passed
his arm round her warm, slender figure, and gently raising her till her
head rested on his shoulder as he sat by the bed, imprinted kiss after
kiss on the pure lips that sleep had innocently abandoned to him.

As he had foreseen, Antonina instantly awoke, but, to his unmeasured
astonishment, neither started nor shrieked. The moment she had opened
her eyes she had recognised the person of Vetranio; and that
overwhelming terror which suspends in its victims the use of every
faculty, whether of the body or the mind, had immediately possessed
itself of her heart. Too innocent to imagine the real motive that
prompted the senator's intrusion on her slumbers, where others of her
sex would have foreboded dishonour, she feared death. All her father's
vague denunciations against the enormities of the nobles of Rome rushed
in an instant over her mind, and her childish imagination pictured
Vetranio as armed with some terrible and mysterious vengeance to be
wreaked on her for having avoided all communication with him as soon as
she had gained possession of her lute. Prostrate beneath the
petrifying influence of her fears, motionless and powerless before him
as its prey before the serpent, she made no effort to move or speak;
but looked up steadfastly into the senator's face, her large eyes fixed
and dilated in a gaze of overpowering terror.

Intoxicated though he was, the affrighted expression of the poor girl's
pale, rigid countenance did not escape Vetranio's notice; and he taxed
his bewildered brain for such soothing and reassuring expressions as
would enable him to introduce his profligate proposals with some chance
that they would be listened to and understood.

'Dearest pupil! Most beautiful of Roman maidens,' he began in the
husky, monotonous tones of inebriety, 'abandon your fears! I come
hither, wafted by the breath of love, to restore the worship of the--I
would say to bear you on my bosom to a villa--the name of which has for
the moment escaped my remembrance. You cannot have forgotten that it
was I who taught you to compose the Nightingale Sauce--or, no--let me
rather say to play upon the lute. Love, music, pleasure, all await you
in the arms of your attached Vetranio. Your eloquent silence speaks
encouragement to my heart. Beloved A