d the lonely plains.

During the period that has elapsed since we left her, Antonina has
remained secure in her solitude, happy in her well-chosen concealment.
The few straggling Goths who at rare intervals appeared in the
neighbourhood of her sanctuary never intruded on its peaceful limits.
The sight of the ravaged fields and emptied granaries of the deserted
little property sufficed invariably to turn their marauding steps in
other directions. Day by day ran smoothly and swiftly onwards for the
gentle usurper of the abandoned farm-house. In the narrow round of its
gardens and protecting woods was comprised for her the whole circle of
the pleasures and occupations of her new life.

The simple stores left in the house, the fruits and vegetables to be
gathered in the garden, sufficed amply for her support. The pastoral
solitude of the place had in it a quiet, dreamy fascination, a novelty,
an unwearying charm, after the austere loneliness to which her former
existence had been subjected in Rome. And when evening came, and the
sun began to burnish the tops of the western tress, then, after the
calm emotions of the solitary day, came the hour of absorbing cares and
happy expectations--ever the same, yet ever delighting and ever new.
Then the rude shutters were carefully closed; the open door was shut
and barred; the small light--now invisible to the world without--was
joyfully kindled; and then, the mistress and author of these
preparations resigned herself to await, with pleased anxiety, the
approach of the guest for whose welcome they were designed.

And never did she expect the arrival of that treasured companion in
vain. Hermanric remembered his promise to repair constantly to the
farm-house, and performed it with all the constancy of love and all the
enthusiasm of youth. When the sentinels under his command were
arranged in their order of watching for the night, and the trust
reposed in him by his superiors exempted his actions from
superintendence during the hours of darkness that followed, he left the
camp, passed through the desolate suburbs, and gained the dwelling
where the young Roman awaited him--returning before daybreak to receive
the communications regularly addressed to him, at that hour, by his
inferior in the command.

Thus, false to his nation, yet true to the new Egeria of his thoughts
and actions--traitor to the requirements of vengeance and war, yet
faithful to the interests of tranquility