The dreary look that had been so long imprinted on the face of Lothair melted away.
“‘Tis well that we came, is it not?” said Catesby; “and now we will seat ourselves.” Below and before them, on an undulating site, a city of palaces and churches spread out its august form, enclosing within its ample walls sometimes a wilderness of classic ruins—column, and arch, and theatre—sometimes the umbrageous spread of princely gardens. A winding and turbid river divided the city in unequal parts, in one of which there rose a vast and glorious temple, crowned with a dome of almost superhuman size and skill, on which the favorite sign of heaven flashed with triumphant truth.
The expression of relief which, for a moment, had reposed on the face of Lothair, left it when he said, in an agitated voice, “I at length behold Rome!”
CHAPTER 62
This recognition of Rome by Lothair evinced not only a consciousness of locality, but an interest in it not before exhibited; and the monsignore soon after seized the opportunity of drawing the mind of his companion to the past, and feeling how far he now realized the occurrences that immediately preceded his arrival in the city. But Lothair would not dwell on them. “I wish to think of nothing,” he said, “that happened before I entered this city: all I desire now is to know those to whom I am indebted for my preservation in a condition that seemed hopeless.”
“There is nothing hopeless with Divine aid,” said the monsignore; “but, humanly speaking, you are indebted for your preservation to English friends, long and intimately cherished. It is under their roof that you dwell, the Agostini palace, tenanted by Lord St. Jerome.”
“Lord St. Jerome!” murmured Lothair to himself.
“And the ladies of his house are those who, only with some slight assistance from my poor self, tended you throughout your most desperate state, and when we sometimes almost feared that mind and body were alike wrecked.”
“I have a dream of angels,” said Lothair; “and sometimes I listened to heavenly voices that I seemed to have heard before.”