Hapless Hypatia! If she must needs misapply, after the fashion of her school, a text or two here and there from the Hebrew Scriptures, what suicidal fantasy set her on quoting that one? For now, upon Philammon's memory flashed up in letters of light, old words forgotten for months—and ere he was aware, he found himself repeating aloud and passionately, 'I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting,'.... and then clear and fair arose before him the vision of the God-man, as He lay at meat in the Pharisee's house; and of her who washed His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.... And from the depths of his agonised heart arose the prayer, 'Blessed Magdalene, intercede for her?'

So high he could rise, but not beyond. For the notion of that God-man was receding fast to more and more awful abysmal heights, in the minds of a generation who were forgetting His love in His power, and practically losing sight of His humanity in their eager doctrinal assertion of His Divinity. And Philammon's heart re-echoed the spirit of his age, when he felt that for an apostate like himself it were presumptuous to entreat for any light or help from the fountain-head itself. He who had denied his Lord, he who had voluntarily cut himself off from the communion of the Catholic Church—how could he restore himself? How could he appease the wrath of Him who died on the cross, save by years of bitter supplication and self-punishment?....

'Fool! Vain and ambitious fool that I have been! For this I threw away the faith of my childhood! For this I listened to words at which I shuddered; crushed down my own doubts and disgusts; tried to persuade myself that I could reconcile them with Christianity—that I could make a lie fit into the truth! For this I puffed myself up in the vain hope of becoming not as other men are—superior, forsooth, to my kind! It was not enough for me to be a man made in the image of God: but I must needs become a god myself, knowing good and evil.—And here is the end! I call upon my fine philosophy to help me once, in one real practical human struggle, and it folds its arms and sits serene and silent, smiling upon my misery! Oh! fool, fool, thou art filled with the fruit of thy own devices! Back to the old faith! Home again, then wanderer! And yet how home? Are not the gates shut against me? Perhaps against her too.... What if she, like me, were a baptized Christian?'

Terrible and all but hopeless that thought flashed across him, as in the first revulsion of his conscience he plunged utterly and implicitly back again into the faith of his childhood, and all the dark and cruel theories popular in his day rose up before him in all their terrors. In the innocent simplicity of the Laura he had never felt their force; but he felt them now. If Pelagia were a baptized woman, what was before her but unceasing penance? Before her, as before him, a life of cold and hunger, groans and tears, loneliness and hideous soul-sickening uncertainty. Life was a dungeon for them both henceforth. Be it so! There was nothing else to believe in. No other rock of hope in earth or heaven. That at least promised a possibility of forgiveness, of amendment, of virtue, of reward—ay, of everlasting bliss and glory; and even if she missed of that, better for her the cell in the desert than a life of self-contented impurity! If that latter were her destiny, as Hypatia said, she should at least die fighting against it, defying it, cursing it! Better virtue with hell, than sin with heaven! And Hypatia had not even promised her a heaven. The resurrection of the flesh was too carnal a notion for her refined and lofty creed. And so, his four months' dream swept away in a moment, he hurried back to his chamber, with one fixed thought before him—the desert; a cell for Pelagia; another for himself. There they would repent, and pray, and mourn out life side by side, if perhaps God would have mercy upon their souls. Yet—perhaps, she might not have been baptized after all. And then she was safe. Like other converts from Paganism, she might become a catechumen, and go on to baptism, where the mystic water would wash away in a moment all the past, and she would begin life afresh, in the spotless robes of innocence. Yet he had been baptized, he knew from Arsenius, before he left Athens; and she was older than he. It was all but impossible yet he would hope; and breathless with anxiety and excitement, he ran up the narrow stairs and found Miriam standing outside, her hand upon the bolt, apparently inclined to dispute his passage.

'Is she still within?'

'What if she be?'

'Let me pass into my own room.'

'Yours? Who has been paying the rent for you, these four months past? You! What can you say to her? What can you do for her? Young pedant, you must be in love yourself before you can help poor creatures who are in love!'

But Philammon pushed past her so fiercely, that the old woman was forced to give way, and with a sinister smile she followed him into the chamber.

Pelagia sprang towards her brother.

'Will she?—will she see me?'

'Let us talk no more of her, my beloved,' said Philammon, laying his hands gently on her trembling shoulders, and looking earnestly into her eyes.... 'Better that we two should work out our deliverance for ourselves, without the help of strangers. You can trust me?'

'You? And can you help me? Will you teach me?'

'Yes, but not here.... We must escape—Nay, hear me, one moment! dearest sister, hear me! Are you so happy here that you can conceive of no better place? And—and, oh, God! that it may not be true after all!—but is there not a hell hereafter?'

Pelagia covered her face with her hands—'The old monk warned me of it!'

'Oh, take his warning....' And Philammon was bursting forth with some such words about the lake of fire and brimstone as he had been accustomed to hear from Pambo and Arsenius, when Pelagia interrupted him— 'Oh, Miriam! Is it true? Is it possible? What will become of me?' almost shrieked the poor child.

'What if it were true?—Let him tell you how he will save you from it,' answered Miriam quietly.

'Will not the Gospel save her from it—unbelieving Jew? Do not contradict me! I can save her.'

'If she does what?'

'Can she not repent? Can she not mortify these base affections? Can she not be forgiven? Oh, my Pelagia! forgive me for having dreamed one moment that I could make you a philosopher, when you may be a saint of God, a—'

He stopped short suddenly, as the thought about baptism flashed across him, and in a faltering voice asked, 'Are you baptized?'

'Baptized?' asked she, hardly understanding the term.

'Yes—by the bishop—in the church.'

'Ah,' she said, 'I remember now.... When I was four or five years odd.... A tank, and women undressing.... And I was bathed too, and an old man dipped my head under the water three times.... I have forgotten what it all meant—it was so long ago. I wore a white dress, I know, afterwards.'

Philammon recoiled with a groan.

'Unhappy child! May God have mercy on you!'

'Will He not forgive me, then? You have forgiven me. He?—He must be more good even than you.—Why not?'

'He forgave you then, freely, when you were baptized: and there is no second pardon unless—

'Unless I leave my love!' shrieked Pelagia.

'When the Lord forgave the blessed Magdalene freely, and told her that her faith had saved her—did she live on in sin, or even in the pleasures of this world? No! though God had forgiven her, she could not forgive herself. She fled forth into the desert, and there, naked and barefoot, clothed only with her hair, and feeding on the herb of the field, she stayed fasting and praying till her dying day, never seeing the face of man, but visited and comforted by angels and archangels. And if she, she who never fell again, needed that long penance to work out her own salvation—oh, Pelagia, what will not God require of you, who have broken your baptismal vows, and defiled the white robes, which the tears of penance only can wash clean once more?'

'But I did not know! I did not ask to be baptized! Cruel, cruel parents, to bring me to it! And God! Oh, why did He forgive me so soon? And to go into the deserts! I dare not! I cannot! See me, how dedicate and tender I am! I should die of hunger and cold! I should go mad with fear and loneliness! Oh! brother, brother, is this the Gospel of the Christians? I came to you to be taught how to be wise, and good, and respected, and you tell me that all I can do is to live this horrible life of torture here, on the chance of escaping torture forever! And how do I know that I shall escape it? How do I know that I shall make myself miserable enough? How do I know that He will forgive me after all? Is this true, Miriam? Tell me, or I shall go mad!'

'Yes,' said Miriam, with a quiet sneer. 'This is the gospel and good news of salvation, according to the doctrine of the Nazarenes.'

'I will go with you!' cried Philammon. 'I will go! I will never leave you! I have my own sins to wash away!—Happy for me if I ever do it!—And I will build you a cell near mine, and kind men will teach us, and the will pray together night and morning, for ourselves and for each other, and weep out our weary lives together—'

'Better end them here, at once!' said Pelagia, with a gesture of despair, and dashed herself down on the floor.

Philammon was about to lift her up, when Miriam caught him by the arm, and in a hurried whisper—'Are you mad? Will you ruin your own purpose? Why did you tell her this? Why did you not wait—give her hope—time to collect herself—time to wean herself from her lover, instead of terrifying and disgusting her at the outset, as you have done? Have you a man's heart in you? No word of comfort for that poor creature, nothing but hell, hell, hell—See to your own chance of hell first! It is greater than you fancy!'

'It cannot be greater than I fancy!'

'Then see to it. For her, poor darling!—why, even we Jews, who know that all you Gentiles are doomed to Gehenna alike, have some sort of hope for such a poor untaught creature as that.'

'And why is she untaught? Wretch that you are. You have had the training of her! You brought her up to sin and shame! You drove from her recollection the faith in which she was baptized!'

'So much the better for her, if the recollection of it is to make her no happier than it does already. Better to wake unexpectedly in Gehenna when you die, than to endure over and above the dread of it here. And as for leaving her untaught, on your own showing she has been taught too much already. Wiser it would be in you to curse your parents for having had her baptized, than me for giving her ten years' pleasure before she goes to the pit of Tophet. Come now, don't be angry with me. The old Jewess is your friend, revile her as you will. She shall marry this Goth.'

'An Arian heretic!'

'She shall convert him and make a Catholic of him, if you like. At all events, if you wish to win her, you must win her my way. You have had your chance, and spoiled it. Let me have mine. Pelagia, darling! Up, and be a woman! We will find a philtre downstairs to give that ungrateful man, that shall make him more mad about you, before a day is over, than ever you were about him.'

'No!' said Pelagia, looking up. 'No love-potions! No poisons!'

'Poisons, little fool! Do you doubt the old woman's skill? Do you think I shall make him lose his wits, as Callisphyra did to her lover last year, because she would trust to old Megaera's drugs, instead of coming to me!'

'No! No drugs; no magic! He must love me really, or not at all! He must love me for myself, because I am worth loving, because he honours, worships me, or let me die. I, whose boast was, even when I was basest, that I never needed such mean tricks, but conquered like Aphrodite, a queen in my own right! I have been my own love-charm: when I cease to be that, let me die!'

'One as mad as the other!' cried Miriam, in utter perplexity. 'Hist! what is that tramp upon the stairs?'

At this moment heavy footsteps were heard ascending the stairs.... All three stopped aghast: Philammon, because he thought the visitors were monks in search of him; Miriam, because she thought they were Orestes's guards in search of her; and Pelagia, from vague dread of anything and everything....

'Have you an inner room?' asked the Jewess.

'None.'

The old woman set her lips firmly, and drew her dagger. Pelagia wrapped her face in her cloak, and stood trembling, bowed down, as if expecting another blow. The door opened, and in walked, neither monks nor guard, but Wulf and Smid.

'Heyday, young monk!' cried the latter worthy, with a loud laugh—'Veils here, too, eh? At your old trade, my worthy portress of hell-gate? Well, walk out now; we have a little business with this young gentleman.'

And slipping past the unsuspecting Goths, Pelagia and Miriam hurried downstairs.

'The young one, at least, seems a little ashamed of her errand.... Now, Wulf, speak low; and I will see that no one is listening at the door.'

Philammon faced his unexpected visitors with a look of angry inquiry. What right had they, or any man, to intrude at such a moment on his misery and disgrace?.... But he was disarmed the next instant by old Wulf, who advanced to him, and looking him fully in the face with an expression which there was no mistaking, held out his broad, brown hand.

Philammon grasped it, and then covering his face with his hands, burst into tears.

'You did right. You are a brave boy. If you had died, no man need have been ashamed to die your death.'

'You were there, then?' sobbed Philammon.

'We were.'

'And what is more,' said Smid, as the poor boy writhed at the admission, 'we were mightily minded, some of us, to have leapt down to you and cut you a passage out. One man, at least, whom I know of, felt his old blood as hot for the minute as a four-year-old's. The foul curs! And to hoot her, after all! Oh that I may have one good hour's hewing at them before I die!'

'And you shall!' said Wulf. 'Boy, you wish to get this sister of yours into your power?'

'It is hopeless—hopeless! She will never leave her—the Amal.'

'Are you so sure of that?'

'She told me so with her own lips not ten minutes ago. That was she who went out as you entered!'

A curse of astonishment and regret burst from Smid....

'Had I but known her! By the soul of my fathers, she should have found that it was easier to come here than to go home again!'

'Hush, Smid! Better as it is. Boy, if I put her into your power, dare you carry her off?'

Philammon hesitated one moment.

'What I dare you know already. But it would be an unlawful thing, surely, to use violence.'

'Settle your philosopher's doubts for yourself. I have made my offer. I should have thought that a man in his senses could give but one answer, much more a mad monk.'

'You forget the money matters, prince,' said Smid, with a smile.

'I do not. But I don't think the boy so mean as to hesitate on that account.'

'He may as well know, however, that we promise to send all her trumpery after her, even to the Amal's presents. As for the house, we won't trouble her to lend it us longer than we can help. We intend shortly to move into more extensive premises, and open business on a grander scale, as the shopkeepers say,—eh, prince?'

'Her money?—That money? God forgive her!' answered Philammon. 'Do you fancy me base enough to touch it? But I am resolved. Tell me what to do, and I will do it.'

'You know the lane which runs down to the canal, under the left wall of the house?'

'Yes.'

'And a door in the corner tower, close to the landing-place?' 'I do.'

'Be there, with a dozen stout monks, to-morrow, an hour after sundown, and take what we give you. After that, the concern is yours, not ours.'

'Monks?' said Philammon. 'I am at open feud with the whole order.'

'Make friends with them, then,' shortly suggested Smid.

Philammon writhed inwardly. 'It makes no difference to you, I presume, whom I bring?'

'No more than it does whether or not you pitch her into the canal, and put a hurdle over her when you have got her,' answered Smid; 'which is what a Goth would do, if he were in your place.'

'Do not vex the poor lad, friend. If he thinks he can mend her instead of punishing her, in Freya's name, let him try. You will be there, then? And mind, I like you. I liked you when you faced that great river-hog. I like you better now than ever; for you have spoken to-day like a Sagaman, and dared like a hero. Therefore mind; if you do not bring a good guard to-morrow night, your life will not be safe. The whole city is out in the streets; and Odin alone knows what will be done, and who will be alive, eight-and-forty hours hence. Mind you!—The mob may do strange things, and they may see still stranger things done. If you once find yourself safe back here, stay where you are, if you value her life or your own. And—if you are wise, let the men whom you bring with you be monks, though it cost your proud stomach—'

'That's not fair, prince! You are telling too much!' interrupted Smid, while Philammon gulped down the said proud stomach, and answered, 'Be it so!'

'I have won my bet, Smid,' said the old man, chuckling, as the two tramped out into the street, to the surprise and fear of all the neighbours, while the children clapped their hands, and the street dogs felt it their duty to bark lustily at the strange figures of their unwonted visitors.

'No play, no pay, Wulf. We shall see to-morrow.'

'I knew that he would stand the trial! I knew he was right at heart!'

'At all events, there is no fear of his ill-using the poor thing, if he loves her well enough to go down on his knees to his sworn foes for her.'

'I don't know that,' answered Wulf, with a shake of the head. 'These monks, I hear, fancy that their God likes them the better the more miserable they are: so, perhaps they may fancy that he will like them all the more, the more miserable they make other people. However, it's no concern of ours.'

'We have quite enough of our own to see to just now. But mind, no play, no pay.'

'Of course not. How the streets are filling! We shall not be able to see the guards to-night, if this mob thickens much more.'

'We shall have enough to do to hold our own, perhaps. Do you hear what they are crying there? "Down with all heathens! Down with barbarians!" That means us, you know.'

'Do you fancy no one understands Greek but yourself? Let them come .... It may give us an excuse.... And we can hold the house a week.'

'But how can we get speech of the guards?'

'We will slip round by water. And, after all, deeds will win them better than talk. They will be forced to fight on the same side as we, and most probably be glad of our help; for if the mob attacks any one, it will begin with the Prefect.'

'And then—Curse their shouting! Let the soldiers once find our Amal at their head, and they will be ready to go with him a mile, where they meant to go a yard.'

'The Goths will, and the Markmen, and those Dacians, and Thracians, or whatever the Romans call them. But I hardly trust the Huns.'

'The curse of heaven on their pudding faces and pigs' eyes! There will be no love lost between us. But there are not twenty of them scattered in different troops; one of us can thrash three of them; and they will be sure to side with the winning party. Besides, plunder, plunder, comrade! When did you know a Hun turn back from that, even if he were only on the scent of a lump of tallow?'

'As for the Gauls and Latins,'.... went on Wulf meditatively, 'they belong to any man who can pay them.'....

'Which we can do, like all wise generals, one penny out of our own pocket, and nine out of the enemy's. And the Amal is staunch?'

'Staunch as his own hounds, now there is something to be done on the spot. His heart was in the right place after all. I knew it all along. But he could never in his life see four-and-twenty hours before him. Even now if that Pelagia gets him under her spell again, he may throw down his sword, and fall as fast asleep as ever.'

'Never fear; we have settled her destiny for her, as far as that is concerned. Look at the mob before the door! We must get in by the postern-gate.'

'Get in by the sewer, like a rat! I go my own way. Draw, old hammer and tongs! or run away!'

'Not this time.' And sword in hand, the two marched into the heart of the crowd, who gave way before them like a flock of sheep.

'They know their intended shepherds already,' said Smid. But at that moment the crowd, seeing them about to enter the house, raised a yell of 'Goths! Heathens! Barbarians!' and a rush from behind took place.

'If you will have it, then!' said Wulf. And the two long bright blades flashed round and round their heads, redder and redder every time they swung aloft.... The old men never even checked their steady walk, and knocking at the gate, went in, leaving more than one lifeless corpse at the entrance.

'We have put the coal in the thatch, now, with a vengeance,' said Smid, as they wiped their swords inside.

'We have. Get me out a boat and half a dozen men, and I and Goderic will go round by the canal to the palace, and settle a thing or two with the guards.'

'Why should not the Amal go, and offer our help himself to the Prefect?'

'What? Would you have him after that turn against the hound? For troth and honour's sake, he must keep quiet in the matter.'

'He will have no objection to keep quiet—trust him for that! But don't forget Sagaman Moneybag, the best of all orators,' called Smid laughingly after him, as he went off to man the boat.



CHAPTER XXV: SEEKING AFTER A SIGN

'What answer has he sent back, father?' asked Hypatia, as Theon re-entered her chamber, after delivering that hapless letter to Philammon.

'Insolent that he is! he tore it to fragments and tied forth without a word.'

'Let him go, and desert us like the rest, in our calamity!'

'At least, we have the jewels.'

'The jewels? Let them be returned to their owner. Shall we defile ourselves by taking them as wages for anything—above all, for that which is unperformed?'

'But, my child, they were given to us freely. He bade me keep them; and—and, to tell you the truth, I must keep them. After this unfortunate failure, be sure of it, every creditor we have will be clamouring for payment.'

'Let them take our house and furniture, and sell us as slaves, then. Let them take all, provided we keep our virtue.'

'Sell us as slaves? Are you mad?'

'Not quite mad yet, father,' answered she with a sad smile. 'But how should we be worse than we are now, were we slaves? Raphael Aben-Ezra told me that he obeyed my precepts, when he went forth as a houseless beggar; and shall I not have courage to obey them myself, if the need come? The thought of his endurance has shamed my luxury for this many a month. After all, what does the philosopher require but bread and water, and the clear brook in which to wash away the daily stains of his earthly prison-house? Let what is fated come. Hypatia struggles with the stream no more!'

'My daughter! And have you given up all hope? So soon disheartened! What! Is this paltry accident to sweep away the purposes of years? Orestes remains still faithful. His guards have orders to garrison the house for as long as we shall require them.'

'Send them away, then. I have done no wrong, and I fear no punishment.'

'You do not know the madness of the mob; they are shouting your name in the streets already, in company with Pelagia's.'

Hypatia shuddered. Her name in company with Pelagia's! And to this she had brought herself!

'I have deserved it! I have sold myself to a lie and a disgrace! I have stooped to truckle, to intrigue! I have bound myself to a sordid trickster! Father! never mention his name to me again! I have leagued myself with the impure and the bloodthirsty, and I have my reward! No more politics for Hypatia from henceforth, my father; no more orations and lectures; no more pearls of Divine wisdom cast before swine. I have sinned in divulging the secrets of the Immortals to the mob. Let them follow their natures! Fool that I was, to fancy that my speech, my plots, could raise them above that which the gods had made them!'

'Then you give up our lectures? Worse and worse! We shall be ruined utterly!'

'We are ruined utterly already. Orestes? There is no help in him. I know the man too well, my father, not to know that he would give us up to-morrow to the fury of the Christians were his own base life—even his own baser office—in danger.'

'Too true—too true! I fear,' said the poor old man, wringing his hands in perplexity. 'What will become of us,—of you, rather? What matter what happens to the useless old star-gazer? Let him die! To-day or next year is alike to him. But you, you! Let us escape by the canal. We may gather up enough, even without these jewels, which you refuse, to pay our voyage to Athens, and there we shall be safe with Plutarch; he will welcome you—all Athens will welcome you—we will collect a fresh school—and you shall be Queen of Athens, as you have been Queen of Alexandria!'

'No, father. What I know, henceforth I will know for myself only. Hypatia will be from this day alone with the Immortal Gods!'

'You will not leave me?' cried the old man, terrified.

'Never on earth!' answered she, bursting into real human tears, and throwing herself on his bosom. 'Never—never! father of my spirit as well as of my flesh!—the parent who has trained me, taught me, educated my soul from the cradle to use her wings!—the only human being who never misunderstood me—never thwarted me—never deceived me!'

'My priceless child! And I have been the cause of your ruin!'

'Not you!—a thousand times not you! I only am to blame! I tampered with worldly politics. I tempted you on to fancy that I could effect what I so rashly undertook. Do not accuse yourself unless you wish to break my heart! We can be happy together yet.—A palm-leaf hut in the desert, dates from the grove, and water from the spring—the monk dares be miserable alone in such a dwelling, and cannot we dare to be happy together in it?'

'Then you will escape?'

'Not to-day. It were base to flee before danger comes. We must hold out at our post to the last moment, even if we dare not die at it like heroes. And to-morrow I go to the lecture-room,—to the beloved Museum, for the last time, to take farewell of my pupils. Unworthy as they are, I owe it to myself and to philosophy to tell them why I leave them.'

'It will be too dangerous—indeed it will!'

'I could take the guards with me, then. And yet—no.... They shall never have occasion to impute fear to the philosopher. Let them see her go forth as usual on her errand, strong in the courage of innocence, secure in the protection of the gods. So, perhaps, some sacred awe, some suspicion of her divineness, may fall on them at last.'

'I must go with you.'

'No, I go alone. You might incur danger where I am safe. After all, I am a woman.... And, fierce as they are, they will not dare to harm me.'

The old man shook his head.

'Look now,' she said smilingly, laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking into his face.... 'You tell me that I am beautiful, you know; and beauty will tame the lion. Do you not think that this face might disarm even a monk?'

And she laughed and blushed so sweetly, that the old man forgot his fears, as she intended that he should, and kissed her and went his way for the time being, to command all manner of hospitalities to the soldiers, whom he prudently determined to keep in his house as long as he could make them stay there; in pursuance of which wise purpose he contrived not to see a great deal of pleasant flirtation between his valiant defenders and Hypatia's maids, who, by no means so prudish as their mistress, welcomed as a rare boon from heaven an afternoon's chat with twenty tall men of war.

So they jested and laughed below, while old Theon, having brought out the very best old wine, and actually proposed in person, by way of mending matters, the health of the Emperor of Africa, locked himself into the library, and comforted his troubled soul with a tough problem of astronomy, which had been haunting him the whole day, even in the theatre itself. But Hypatia sat still in her chamber, her face buried in her hands, her heart full of many thoughts; her eyes of tears. She had smiled away her father's fears; she could not smile away her own.

She felt, she hardly knew why, but she felt as clearly as if a god had proclaimed it to her bodily ears, that the crisis of her life was come: that her political and active career was over, and that she must now be content to be for herself, and in herself alone, all that she was, or might become. The world might be regenerated: but not in her day;—the gods restored; but not by her. It was a fearful discovery, and yet hardly a discovery. Her heart had told her for years that she was hoping against hope,—that she was struggling against a stream too mighty for her. And now the moment had come when she must either be swept helpless down the current, or, by one desperate effort, win firm land, and let the tide roll on its own way henceforth.... Its own way?.... Not the way of the gods, at least; for it was sweeping their names from off the earth. What if they did not care to be known? What if they were weary of worship and reverence from mortal men, and, self-sufficing in their own perfect bliss, recked nothing for the weal or woe of earth? Must it not be so? Had she not proof of it in everything which she beheld? What did Isis care for her Alexandria? What did Athens care for her Athens?.... And yet Homer and Hesiod, and those old Orphic singers, were of another mind.... Whence got they that strange fancy of gods counselling, warring, intermarrying, with mankind, as with some kindred tribe?

'Zeus, father of gods and men.'.... Those were words of hope and comfort.... But were they true? Father of men? Impossible!—not father of Pelagia, surely. Not father of the base, the foul, the ignorant.... Father of heroic souls, only, the poets must have meant.... But where were the heroic souls now? Was she one? If so, why was she deserted by the upper powers in her utter need? Was the heroic race indeed extinct? Was she merely assuming, in her self-conceit, an honour to which she had no claim? Or was it all a dream of these old singers? Had they, as some bold philosophers had said, invented gods in their own likeness, and palmed off on the awe and admiration of men their own fair phantoms?.... It must be so. If there were gods, to know them was the highest bliss of man. Then would they not teach men of themselves, unveil their own loveliness to a chosen few, even for the sake of their own honour, if not, as she had dreamed once, from love to those who bore a kindred flame to theirs?....What if there were no gods? What if the stream of fate, which was sweeping away their names; were the only real power? What if that old Pyrrhonic notion were the true solution of the problem of the Universe? What if there were no centre, no order, no rest, no goal—but only a perpetual flux, a down-rushing change? And before her dizzying brain and heart arose that awful vision of Lucretius, of the homeless Universe falling, falling, falling, for ever from nowhence toward nowhither through the unending ages, by causeless and unceasing gravitation, while the changes and efforts of all mortal things were but the jostling of the dust-atoms amid the everlasting storm....

It could not be! There was a truth, a virtue, a beauty, a nobleness, which could never change, but which were absolute, the same for ever. The God-given instinct of her woman's heart rebelled against her intellect, and, in the name of God, denied its lie.... Yes,—there was virtue, beauty.... And yet—might not they, too, be accidents of that enchantment, which man calls mortal life; temporary and mutable accidents of consciousness; brilliant sparks, struck out by the clashing of the dust-atoms? Who could tell?

There were those once who could tell. Did not Plotinus speak of a direct mystic intuition of the Deity, an enthusiasm without passion, a still intoxication of the soul, in which she rose above life, thought, reason, herself, to that which she contemplated, the absolute and first One, and united herself with that One, or, rather, became aware of that union which had existed from the first moment in which she emanated from the One? Six times in a life of sixty years had Plotinus risen to that height of mystic union, and known himself to be a part of God. Once had Porphyry attained the same glory. Hypatia, though often attempting, had never yet succeeded in attaining to any distinct vision of a being external to herself; though practice, a firm will, and a powerful imagination, had long since made her an adept in producing, almost at will, that mysterious trance, which was the preliminary step to supernatural vision. But her delight in the brilliant, and, as she held, divine imaginations, in which at such times she revelled, had been always checked and chilled by the knowledge that, in such matters, hundreds inferior to her in intellect and in learning,—ay, saddest of all, Christian monks and nuns, boasted themselves her equals,—indeed, if their own account of their visions was to be believed, her superiors—by the same methods which she employed. For by celibacy, rigorous fasts, perfect bodily quiescence, and intense contemplation of one thought, they, too, pretended to be able to rise above the body into the heavenly regions, and to behold things unspeakable, which nevertheless, like most other unspeakable things, contrived to be most carefully detailed and noised abroad.... And it was with a half feeling of shame that she prepared herself that afternoon for one more, perhaps one last attempt, to scale the heavens, as she recollected how many an illiterate monk and nun, from Constantinople to the Thebaid, was probably employed at that moment exactly as she was. Still, the attempt must be made. In that terrible abyss of doubt, she must have something palpable, real; something beyond her own thoughts, and hopes, and speculations, whereon to rest her weary faith, her weary heart.... Perhaps this time, at least, in her extremest need, a god might vouchsafe some glimpse of his own beauty .... Athene might pity at last.... Or, if not Athene, some archetype, angel, demon.... And then she shuddered at the thought of those evil and deceiving spirits, whose delight it was to delude and tempt the votaries of the gods, in the forms of angels of light. But even in the face of that danger, she must make the trial once again. Was she not pure and spotless as Athene's self? Would not her innate purity enable her to discern, by an instinctive antipathy, those foul beings beneath the fairest mask? At least, she must make the trial....

And so, with a look of intense humility, she began to lay aside her jewels and her upper robes. Then, baring her bosom and her feet, and shaking her golden tresses loose, she laid herself down upon the conch, crossed her hands upon her breast, and, with upturned ecstatic eyes, waited for that which might befall.

There she lay, hour after hour, as her eye gradually kindled, her bosom heaved, her breath came fast: but there was no more sign of life in those straight still limbs, and listless feet and hands, than in Pygmalion's ivory bride, before she bloomed into human flesh and blood. The sun sank towards his rest; the roar of the city grew louder and louder without; the soldiers revelled and laughed below: but every sound passed through unconscious ears, and went its way unheeded. Faith, hope, reason itself, were staked upon the result of that daring effort to scale the highest heaven. And, by one continuous effort of her practised will, which reached its highest virtue, as mystics hold, in its own suicide, she chained down her senses from every sight and sound, and even her mind from every thought, and lay utterly self-resigned, self-emptied, till consciousness of time and place had vanished, and she seemed to herself alone in the abyss.

She dared not reflect, she dared not hope, she dared not rejoice, lest she should break the spell.... Again and again had she broken it at this very point, by some sudden and tumultuous yielding to her own joy or awe; but now her will held firm.... She did not feel her own limbs, hear her own breath.... A light bright mist, an endless network of glittering films, coming, going, uniting, resolving themselves, was above her and around her.... Was she in the body or out of the body?.... ...............

The network faded into an abyss of still clear light.... A still warm atmosphere was around her, thrilling through and through her .... She breathed the light, and floated in it, as a mote in the mid-day beam.... And still her will held firm. ...............

Far away, miles, and aeons, and abysses away, through the interminable depths of glory, a dark and shadowy spot. It neared and grew.... A dark globe, ringed with rainbows.... What might it be? She dared not hope.... It came nearer, nearer, nearer, touched her.... The centre quivered, flickered, took form—a face. A god's? No—Pelagia's.

Beautiful, sad, craving, reproachful, indignant, awful.... Hypatia could bear no more: and sprang to her feet with a shriek, to experience in its full bitterness the fearful revulsion of the mystic, when the human reason and will which he has spurned reassert their God-given rights; and after the intoxication of the imagination, come its prostration and collapse.

And this, then, was the answer of the gods! The phantom of her whom she had despised, exposed, spurned from her! 'No, not their answer—the answer of my own soul! Fool that I have been! I have been exerting my will most while I pretended to resign it most! I have been the slave of every mental desire, while I tried to trample on them! What if that network of light, that blaze, that globe of darkness, have been, like the face of Pelagia, the phantoms of my own imagination—ay, even of my own senses? What if I have mistaken for Deity my own self? What if I have been my own light, my own abyss?.... Am I not my own abyss, my own light—my own darkness?' And she smiled bitterly as she said it, and throwing herself again upon the couch, buried her head in her hands, exhausted equally in body and in mind.

At last she rose, and sat, careless of her dishevelled locks, gazing out into vacancy. 'Oh for a sign, for a token! Oh for the golden days of which the poets sang, when gods walked among men, fought by their side as friends! And yet.... are these old stories credible, pious, even modest? Does not my heart revolt from them? Who has shared more than I in Plato's contempt for the foul deeds, the degrading transformations, which Homer imputes to the gods of Greece? Must I believe them now? Must I stoop to think that gods, who live in a region above all sense, will deign to make themselves palpable to those senses of ours which are whole aeons of existence below them? Degrade themselves to the base accidents of matter? Yes! That, rather than nothing!.... Be it even so. Better, better, better, to believe that Ares fled shrieking and wounded from a mortal man—better to believe in Zeus's adulteries and Hermes's thefts—than to believe that gods have never spoken face to face with men! Let me think, lest I go mad, that beings from that unseen world for which I hunger have appeared, and held communion with mankind, such as no reason or sense could doubt—even though those beings were more capricious and baser than ourselves! Is there, after all, an unseen world? Oh for a sign, a sign!'

Haggard and dizzy, she wandered into her 'chamber of the gods'; a collection of antiquities, which she kept there rather as matters of taste than of worship. All around her they looked out into vacancy with their white soulless eyeballs, their dead motionless beauty, those cold dreams of the buried generations. Oh that they could speak, and set her heart at rest! At the lower end of the room stood a Pallas, completely armed with aegis, spear, and helmet; a gem of Athenian sculpture, which she had bought from some merchants after the sack of Athens by the Goths. There it stood severely fair; but the right hand, alas! was gone; and there the maimed arm remained extended, as if in sad mockery of the faith of which the body remained, while the power was dead and vanished.

She gazed long and passionately on the image of her favourite goddess, the ideal to which she had longed for years to assimilate herself; till—was it a dream? was it a frolic of the dying sunlight? or did those lips really bend themselves into a smile?

Impossible! No, not impossible. Had not, only a few years before, the image of Hecate smiled on a philosopher? Were there not stories of moving images, and winking pictures, and all the material miracles by which a dying faith strives desperately—not to deceive others—but to persuade itself of its own sanity? It had been—it might be—it was—!

No! there the lips were, as they had been from the beginning, closed upon each other in that stony self-collected calm, which was only not a sneer. The wonder, if it was one, had passed: and now—did her eyes play her false, or were the snakes round that Medusa's head upon the shield all writhing, grinning, glaring at her with stony eyes, longing to stiffen her with terror into their own likeness?

No! that, too, passed. Would that even it had stayed, for it would have been a sign of life! She looked up at the face once more: but in vain—the stone was stone; and ere she was aware, she found herself clasping passionately the knees of the marble.

'Athene! Pallas! Adored! Ever Virgin! Absolute reason, springing unbegotten from the nameless One! Hear me! Athene! Have mercy on me! Speak, if it be to curse me! Thou who alone wieldest the lightnings of thy father, wield them to strike me dead, if thou wilt; only do something!—something to prove thine own existence—something to make me sure that anything exists beside this gross miserable matter, and my miserable soul. I stand alone in the centre of the universe! I fall and sicken down the abyss of ignorance, and doubt, and boundless blank and darkness! Oh, have mercy! I know that thou art not this! Thou art everywhere and in all things! But I know that this is a form which pleases thee, which symbolises thy nobleness! T know that thou hast deigned to speak to those who—Oh! what do I know? Nothing! nothing! nothing!

And she clung there, bedewing with scalding tears the cold feet of the image, while there was neither sign, nor voice, nor any that answered.

On a sudden she was startled by a rustling near; and, looking round, saw close behind her the old Jewess.

'Cry aloud!' hissed the hag, in a tone of bitter scorn; 'cry aloud, for she is a goddess. Either she is talking, or pursuing, or she is on a journey; or perhaps she has grown old, as we all shall do some day, my pretty lady, and is too cross and lazy to stir. What! her naughty doll will not speak to her, will it not? or even open its eyes, because the wires are grown rusty? Well, we will find a new doll for her, if she chooses.'

'Begone, hag! What do you mean by intruding here?' said Hypatia, springing up; but the old woman went on coolly—

'Why not try the fair young gentleman over there?' pointing to a copy of the Apollo which we call Belvedere—'What is his name? Old maids are always cross and jealous, you know. But he—he could not be cruel to such a sweet face as that. Try the fair young lad! Or, perhaps, if you are bashful, the old Jewess might try him for you?'

These last words were spoken with so marked a significance, that Hypatia, in spite of her disgust, found herself asking the hag what she meant. She made no answer for a few seconds, but remained looking steadily into her eyes with a glance of fire, before which even the proud Hypatia, as she had done once before, quailed utterly, so deep was the understanding, so dogged the purpose, so fearless the power, which burned within those withered and shrunken sockets.

'Shall the old witch call him up, the fair young Apollo, with the beauty-bloom upon his chin? He shall come! He shall come! I warrant him he must come, civilly enough, when old Miriam's finger is once held up.'

'To you? Apollo, the god of light, obey a Jewess?'

'A Jewess? And you a Greek?' almost yelled the old woman. 'And who are you who ask? And who are your gods, your heroes, your devils, you children of yesterday, compared with us? You, who were a set of half-naked savages squabbling about the siege of Troy, when our Solomon, amid splendours such as Rome and Constantinople never saw, was controlling demons and ghosts, angels and archangels, principalities and powers, by the ineffable name? What science have you that you have not stolen from the Egyptians and Chaldees? And what had the Egyptians which Moses did not teach them? And what have the Chaldees which Daniel did not teach them? What does the world know but from us, the fathers and the masters of magic—us, the lords of the inner secrets of the universe! Come, you Greek baby—as the priests in Egypt said of your forefathers, always children, craving for a new toy, and throwing it away next day—come to the fountainhead of all your paltry wisdom! Name what you will see, and you shall see it!'

Hypatia was cowed; for of one thing there was no doubt,—that the woman utterly believed her own words; and that was a state of mind of which she had seen so little, that it was no wonder if it acted on her with that overpowering sympathetic force, with which it generally does, and perhaps ought to, act on the human heart. Besides, her school had always looked to the ancient nations of the East for the primeval founts of inspiration, the mysterious lore of mightier races long gone by. Might she not have found it now?

The Jewess saw her advantage in a moment, and ran on, without giving her time to answer—

'What sort shall it be, then? By glass and water, or by the moonlight on the wall, or by the sieve, or by the meal? By the cymbals, or by the stars? By the table of the twenty-four elements, by which the Empire was promised to Theodosius the Great, or by the sacred counters of the Assyrians, or by the sapphire of the Hecatic sphere? Shall I threaten, as the Egyptian priests used to do, to tear Osiris again in pieces, or to divulge the mysteries of Isis? I could do so, if I chose; for I know them all and more. Or shall I use the ineffable name on Solomon's seal, which we alone, of all the nations of the earth, know? No; it would be a pity to waste that upon a heathen. It shall be by the sacred wafer. Look here!—here they are, the wonder-working atomies! Eat no food this day, except one of these every three hours, and come to me to-night at the house of your porter, Eudaimon, bringing with you the black agate; and then—why then, what you have the heart to see, you shall see!'

Hypatia took the wafers, hesitating—

'But what are they?'

'And you profess to explain Homer? Whom did I hear the other morning lecturing away so glibly on the nepenthe which Helen gave the heroes, to fill them with the spirit of joy and love; how it was an allegory of the inward inspiration which flows from spiritual beauty, and all that?—pretty enough, fair lady; but the question still remains, what was it? and I say it was this. Take it and try; and then confess, that while you can talk about Helen, I can act her; and know a little more about Homer than you do, after all.'

'I cannot believe you! Give me some sign of your power, or how can I trust you?'

'A sign?—A sign? Kneel down then there, with your face toward the north; you are over tall for the poor old cripple.'

'I? I never knelt to human being.'

'Then consider that you kneel to the handsome idol there, if you will—but kneel!'

And, constrained by that glittering eye, Hypatia knelt before her.

'Have you faith? Have you desire? Will you submit? Will you obey? Self-will and pride see nothing, know nothing. If you do not give up yourself, neither God nor devil will care to approach. Do you submit?'

'I do! I do!' cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of curiosity and self-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing and her limbs loosening more and more every moment under that intolerable fascination.

The old woman drew from her bosom a crystal, and placed the point against Hypatia's breast. A cold shiver ran through her.... The witch waved her hands mysteriously round her head, muttering from time to time, 'Down! down, proud spirit!' and then placed the tips of her skinny fingers on the victim's forehead. Gradually her eyelids became heavy; again and again she tried to raise them, and dropped them again before those fixed glaring eyes...., and in another moment she lost consciousness....

When she awoke, she was kneeling in a distant part of the room, with dishevelled hair and garments. What was it so cold that she was clasping in her arms? The feet of the Apollo! The hag stood by her, chuckling to herself and clapping her hands.

'How came I here? What have I been doing?'

'Saying such pretty things!—paying the fair youth there such compliments, as he will not be rude enough to forget in his visit to-night. A charming prophetic trance you have had! Ah ha! you are not the only woman who is wiser asleep than awake! Well, you will make a very pretty Cassandra-or a Clytia, if you have the sense.... It lies with you, my fair lady. Are you satisfied now? Will you have any more signs? Shall the old Jewess blast those blue eyes blind to show that she knows more than the heathen?'

'Oh, I believe you—I believe,' cried the poor exhausted maiden. 'I will come; and yet—'

'Ah! yes! You had better settle first how he shall appear.'

'As he wills!—let him only come! only let me know that he is a god. Abamnon said that gods appeared in a clear, steady, unbearable light, amid a choir of all the lesser deities, archangels, principalities, and heroes, who derive their life from them.'

'Abamnon was an old fool, then. Do you think young Phoebus ran after Daphne with such a mob at his heels? or that Jove, when he swam up to Leda, headed a whole Nile-flock of ducks, and plover, and curlews? No, he shall come alone—to you alone; and then you may choose for yourself between Cassandra and Clytia.... Farewell. Do not forget your wafers, or the agate either, and talk with no one between now and sunset. And then—my pretty lady!'

And laughing to herself, the old hag glided from the room.

Hypatia sat trembling with shame and dread. She, as a disciple of the more purely spiritualistic school of Porphyry, had always looked with aversion, with all but contempt, on those theurgic arts which were so much lauded and employed by Iamblicus, Abamnon, and those who clung lovingly to the old priestly rites of Egypt and Chaldaea. They had seemed to her vulgar toys, tricks of legerdemain, suited only for the wonder of the mob.... She began to think of them with more favour now. How did she know that the vulgar did not require signs and wonders to make them believe?.... How, indeed? for did she not want such herself? And she opened Abamnon's famous letter to Porphyry, and read earnestly over, for the twentieth time, his subtle justification of magic, and felt it to be unanswerable. Magic? What was not magical? The whole universe, from the planets over her head to the meanest pebble at her feet, was utterly mysterious, ineffable, miraculous, influencing and influenced by affinities and repulsions as unexpected, as unfathomable, as those which, as Abamnon said, drew the gods towards those sounds, those objects, which, either in form, or colour, or chemical properties, were symbolic of, or akin to, themselves. What wonder in it, after all? Was not love and hatred, sympathy and antipathy, the law of the universe? Philosophers, when they gave mechanical explanations of natural phenomena, came no nearer to the real solution of them. The mysterious 'Why?' remained untouched.... All their analyses could only darken with big words the plain fact that the water hated the oil with which it refused to mix, the lime loved the acid which it eagerly received into itself, and, like a lover, grew warm with the rapture of affection. Why not? What right had we to deny sensation, emotion, to them, any more than to ourselves? Was not the same universal spirit stirring in them as in us? And was it not by virtue of that spirit that we thought, and felt, and loved?—Then why not they, as well as we? If the one spirit permeated all things, if its all-energising presence linked the flower with the crystal as well as with the demon and the god, must it not link together also the two extremes of the great chain of being? bind even the nameless One itself to the smallest creature which bore its creative impress? What greater miracle in the attraction of a god or an angel, by material incense, symbols, and spells, than in the attraction of one soul to another by the material sounds of the human voice? Was the affinity between spirit and matter implied in that, more miraculous than the affinity between the soul and the body?—than the retention of that soul within that body by the breathing of material air, the eating of material food? Or even, if the physicists were right, and the soul were but a material product or energy of the nerves, and the sole law of the universe the laws of matter, then was not magic even more probable, more rational? Was it not fair by every analogy to suppose that there might be other, higher beings than ourselves, obedient to those laws, and therefore possible to be attracted, even as human beings were, by the baits of material sights and sounds?.... If spirit pervaded all things, then was magic probable; if nothing but matter had existence, magic was morally certain. All that remained in either case was the test of experience.... And had not that test been applied in every age, and asserted to succeed? What more rational, more philosophic action than to try herself those methods and ceremonies which she was assured on every hand had never failed but through the ignorance or unfitness of the neophyte?.... Abamnon must be right.... She dared not think him wrong; for if this last hope failed, what was there left but to eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?



CHAPTER XXVI: MIRIAM'S PLOT

He who has worshipped a woman, even against his will and conscience, knows well how storm may follow storm, and earthquake earthquake, before his idol be utterly overthrown. And so Philammon found that evening, as he sat pondering over the strange chances of the day; for, as he pondered, his old feelings towards Hypatia began, in spite of the struggles of his conscience and reason, to revive within him. Not only pure love of her great loveliness, the righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty, whether in man or woman, as something of real worth—divine, heavenly, ay, though we know not how, in a most deep sense eternal; which makes our reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of moralists about 'the fleeting hues of this our painted clay'; telling men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures tell them, that physical beauty is the deepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though beauty without discretion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel of gold it is still, the sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be, perhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth. Not only this, which whispered to him—and who shall say that the whisper was of the earth, or of the lower world?—'She is too beautiful to be utterly evil'; but the very defect in her creed which he had just discovered, drew him towards her again. She had no Gospel for the Magdalene, because she was a Pagan.... That, then, was the fault of her Paganism, not of herself. She felt for Pelagia, but even if she had not, was not that, too, the fault of her Paganism? And for that Paganism who was to be blamed? She?.... Was he the man to affirm that? Had he not seen scandals, stupidities, brutalities, enough to shake even his faith, educated a Christian? How much more excuse for her, more delicate, more acute, more lofty than he; the child, too of a heathen father? Her perfections, were they not her own?—her defects, those of her circumstances?.... And had she not welcomed him, guarded him, taught him, honoured him?.... Could he turn against her? above all now in her distress—perhaps her danger? Was he not bound to her, if by nothing else, by gratitude? Was not he, of all men, bound to believe that all she required to make her perfect was conversion to the true faith?.... And that first dream of converting her arose almost as bright as ever.... Then he was checked by the thought of his first utter failure.... At least, if he could not convert her, he could love her, pray for her.... No, he could not even do that; for to whom could he pray? He had to repent, to be forgiven, to humble himself by penitence, perhaps for years, ere he could hope to be heard even for himself, much less for another.... And so backwards and forwards swayed his hope and purpose, till he was roused from his meditation by the voice of the little porter summoning him to his evening meal; and recollecting, for the first time, that he had tasted no food that day, he went down, half-unwillingly, and ate.

But as he, the porter, and his negro wife were sitting silently and sadly enough together, Miriam came in, apparently in high good humour, and lingered a moment on her way to her own apartments upstairs.

'Eh? At supper? And nothing but lentils and water-melons, when the flesh-pots of Egypt have been famous any time these two thousand years. Ah! but times are changed since then!.... You have worn out the old Hebrew hints, you miserable Gentiles, you, and got a Caesar instead of a Joseph! Hist, you hussies!' cried she to the girls upstairs, clapping her hands loudly. 'Here! bring us down one of those roast chickens, and a bottle of the wine of wines—the wine with the green seal, you careless daughters of Midian, you, with your wits running on the men, I'll warrant, every minute I've been out of the house! Ah, you'll smart for it some day—you'll smart for it some day, you daughters of Adam's first wife!'

Down came, by the hands of one of the Syrian slave-girls, the fowl and the wine.

'There, now; we'll all sup together. Wine, that maketh glad the heart of man!—Youth, you were a monk once, so you have read all about that, eh? and about the best wine which goes down sweetly, causing the lips of them that are asleep to speak. And rare wine it was, I warrant, which the blessed Solomon had in his little country cellar up there in Lebanon. We'll try if this is not a very fair substitute for it, though. Come, my little man-monkey, drink, and forget your sorrow! You shall be temple-sweeper to Beelzebub yet, I promise you. Look at it there, creaming and curdling, the darling! purring like a cat at the very thought of touching human lips! As sweet as honey, as strong as fire, as clear as amber! Drink, ye children of Gehenna; and make good use of the little time that is left you between this and the unquenchable fire!'

And tossing a cup of it down her own throat, as if it had been water, she watched her companions with a meaning look, as they drank.

The little porter followed her example gallantly. Philammon looked, and longed, and sipped blushingly and bashfully, and tried to fancy that he did not care for it; and sipped again, being willing enough to forget his sorrow also for a moment; the negress refused with fear and trembling—'She had a vow on her.'

'Satan possess you and your vow! Drink, you coal out of Tophet! Do you think it is poisoned? You, the only creature in the world that I should not enjoy ill-using, because every one else ill-uses you already without my help! Drink, I say, or I'll turn you pea-green from head to foot!'

The negress put the cup to her lips, and contrived, for her own reasons, to spill the contents unobserved.

'A very fine lecture that of the Lady Hypatia's the other morning, on Helen's nepenthe,' quoth the little porter, growing philosophic as the wine-fumes rose. 'Such a power of extracting the cold water of philosophy out of the bottomless pit of Mythus, I never did hear. Did you ever, my Philammonidion?'

'Aha! she and I were talking about that half an hour ago,' said Miriam.

'What! have you seen her?' asked Philammon, with a flutter of the heart.

'If you mean, did she mention you,—why, then, yes!'

'How?—how?'

'Talked of a young Phoebus Apollo—without mentioning names, certainly, but in the most sensible, and practical, and hopeful way—the wisest speech that I have heard from her this twelvemonth.'

Philammon blushed scarlet.

'And that,' thought he, in spite of what passed this morning!—Why' what is the matter with our host?'

'He has taken Solomon's advice, and forgotten his sorrow.'

And so, indeed, he had; for he was sleeping sweetly, with open lack-lustre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the ceiling; while the negress, with her head fallen on her chest, seemed equally unconscious of their presence.

'We'll see,' quoth Miriam; and taking up the lamp, she held the flame unceremoniously to the arm of each of them; but neither winced nor stirred.

'Surely your wine is not drugged?' said Philammon, in trepidation.

'Why not? What has made them beasts, may make us angels. You seem none the less lively for it! Do I?'

'But drugged wine?'

'Why not? The same who made wine made poppy-juice. Both will make man happy. Why not use both?'

'It is poison!'

'It is the nepenthe, as I told Hypatia, whereof she was twaddling mysticism this morning. Drink, child, drink! I have no mind to put you to sleep to-night! I want to make a man of you, or rather, to see whether you are one!'

And she drained another cup, and then went on, half talking to herself—

'Ay, it is poison; and music is poison; and woman is poison, according to the new creed, Pagan and Christian; and wine will be poison, and meat will be poison, some day; and we shall have a world full of mad Nebuchadnezzars, eating grass like oxen. It is poisonous, and brutal, and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and an eunuch, and a dry branch. You are all in the same lie, Christians and philosophers, Cyril and Hypatia! Don't interrupt me, but drink, young fool!—Ay, and the only man who keeps his manhood, the only man who is not ashamed to be what God has made him, is your Jew. You will find yourselves in want of him after all, some day, you besotted Gentiles, to bring you back to common sense and common manhood.—In want of him and his grand old books, which you despise while you make idols of them, about Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Solomon, whom you call saints, you miserable hypocrites, though they did what you are too dainty to do, and had their wives and their children, and thanked God for a beautiful woman, as Adam did before them, and their sons do after them—Drink, I say—and believed that God had really made the world, and not the devil, and had given them the lordship over it, as you will find out to your cost some day.'

Philammon heard, and could not answer; and on she rambled.

'And music, too? Our priests were not afraid of sackbut and psaltery, dulcimer and trumpet, in the house of the Lord; for they knew who had given them the cunning to make them. Our prophets were not afraid of calling for music, when they wished to prophesy, and letting it soften and raise their souls, and open and quicken them till they saw into the inner harmony of things, and beheld the future in the present; for they knew who made the melody and harmony, and made them the outward symbols of the inward song which runs through sun and stars, storm and tempest, fulfilling his word—in that these sham philosophers the heathen are wiser than those Christian monks. Try it!—try it! Come with me! Leave these sleepers here, and come to my rooms. You long to be as wise as Solomon. Then get at wisdom as Solomon did, and give your heart first to know folly and madness.... You have read the Book of the Preacher?'

Poor Philammon! He was no longer master of himself. The arguments—the wine—the terrible spell of the old woman's voice and eye, and the strong overpowering will which showed out through them, dragged him along in spite of himself. As if in a dream, he followed her up the stairs.

'There, throw away that stupid, ugly, shapeless philosopher's cloak. So! You have on the white tunic I gave you? And now you look as a human being should. And you have been to the baths to-day? Well—you have the comfort of feeling now like other people, and having that alabaster skin as white as it was created, instead of being tanned like a brute's hide. Drink, I say! Ay—what was that face, that figure, made for? Bring a mirror here, hussy! There, look in that and judge for yourself? Were those lips rounded for nothing? Why were those eyes set in your head, and made to sparkle bright as jewels, sweet as mountain honey? Why were those curls laid ready for soft fingers to twine themselves among them, and look all the whiter among the glossy black knots? Judge for yourself!'

Alas! poor Philammon!

'And after all,' thought he, 'is it not true, as well as pleasant?'

'Sing to the poor boy, girls!—sing to him! and teach him for the first time in his little ignorant life, the old road to inspiration!'

One of the slave-girls sat down on the divan, and took up a double flute; while the other rose, and accompanying the plaintive dreamy air with a slow dance, and delicate twinklings of her silver armlets and anklets, and the sistrum which she held aloft, she floated gracefully round and round the floor and sang—

Why were we born but for bliss? Why are we ripe, but to fall? Dream not that duty can bar thee from beauty, Like water and sunshine, the heirloom of all.

Lips were made only to kiss; Hands were made only to toy; Eyes were made only to lure on the lonely, The longing, the loving, and drown them in joy!

Alas, for poor Philammon! And yet no! The very poison brought with it its own anti-dote; and, shaking off by one strong effort of will the spell of the music and the wine, he sprang to his feet....

'Never! If love means no more than that—if it is to be a mere delicate self-indulgence, worse than the brute's, because it requires the prostration of nobler faculties, and a selfishness the more huge in proportion to the greatness of the soul which is crushed inward by it—then I will have none of it! I have had my dream—yes! but it was of one who should be at once my teacher and my pupil, my debtor and my queen—who should lean on me, and yet support me—supply my defects, although with lesser light, as the old moon fills up the circle of the new—labour with me side by side in some great work—rising with me for ever as I rose: and this is the base substitute! Never!'

Whether or not this was unconsciously forced into words by the vehemence of his passion, or whether the old Jewess heard, or pretended to hear, a footstep coming up the stair, she at all events sprang instantly to her feet.

'Hist! Silence, girls! I hear a visitor. What mad maiden has come to beg a love-charm of the poor old witch at this time of night? Or have the Christian bloodhounds tracked the old lioness of Judah to her den at last? We'll see!'

And she drew a dagger from her girdle, and stepped boldly to the door. As she went out she turned—

'So! my brave young Apollo! You do not admire simple woman? You must have something more learned and intellectual and spiritual, and so forth. I wonder whether Eve, when she came to Adam in the garden, brought with her a certificate of proficiency in the seven sciences? Well, well—like must after like. Perhaps we shall be able to suit you after all. Vanish, daughters of Midian!'

The girls vanished accordingly, whispering and laughing; and Philammon found himself alone. Although he was somewhat soothed by the old woman's last speech, yet a sense of terror, of danger, of coming temptation, kept him standing sternly on his feet, looking warily round the chamber, lest a fresh siren should emerge from behind some curtain or heap of pillows.

On one side of the room he perceived a doorway, filled by a curtain of gauze, from behind which came the sound of whispering voices. His fear, growing with the general excitement of his mind, rose into anger as he began to suspect some snare; and he faced round towards the curtain, and stood like a wild beast at bay, ready, with uplifted arm, for all evil spirits, male or female.

'And he will show himself? How shall I accost him?' whispered a well-known voice—could it be Hypatia's? And then the guttural Hebrew accent of the old woman answered— 'As you spoke of him this morning—'

'Oh! I will tell him all, and he must—he must have mercy! But he?—so awful, so glorious!—'

What the answer was, he could not hear but the next moment a sweet heavy scent, as of narcotic gums, filled the room—mutterings of incantations—and then a blaze of light, in which the curtain vanished, and disclosed to his astonished eyes, enveloped in a glory of luminous smoke, the hag standing by a tripod, and, kneeling by her, Hypatia herself, robed in pure white, glittering with diamonds and gold, her lips parted, her head thrown back, her arms stretched out in an agony of expectation.

In an instant, before he had time to stir, she had sprung through the blaze, and was kneeling at his feet.

'Phoebus! beautiful, glorious, ever young! Hear me! only a moment! only this once!'

Her drapery had caught fire from the tripod, but she did not heed it. Philammon instinctively clasped her in his arms, and crushed it out, as she cried—

'Have mercy on me! Tell me the secret! I will obey thee! I have no self—I am thy slave! Kill me, if thou wilt: but speak!'

The blaze sank into a soft, warm, mellow gleam, and beyond it what appeared?

The negro-woman, with one finger upon her lips, as with an imploring, all but despairing look, she held up to him her little crucifix.

He saw it. What thoughts flashed through him, like the lightning bolt, at that blessed sign of infinite self-sacrifice, I say not; let those who know it judge for themselves. But in another instant he had spurned from him the poor deluded maiden, whose idolatrous ecstasies he saw instantly were not meant for himself, and rushed desperately across the room, looking for an outlet.

He found a door in the darkness—a room-a window—and in another moment he had leapt twenty feet into the street, rolled over, bruised and bleeding, rose again like an Antaeus, with new strength, and darted off towards the archbishop's house.

And poor Hypatia lay half senseless on the floor, with the Jewess watching her bitter tears—not merely of disappointment, but of utter shame. For as Philammon fled she had recognised those well-known features; and the veil was lifted from her eyes, and the hope and the self-respect of Theon's daughter were gone for ever.

Her righteous wrath was too deep for upbraidings. Slowly she rose; returned into the inner room; wrapped her cloak deliberately around her; and went silently away, with one look at the Jewess of solemn scorn and defiance.

'Ah! I can afford a few sulky looks to-night!' said the old woman to herself, with a smile, as she picked up from the floor the prize for which she had been plotting so long—Raphael's half of the black agate.

'I wonder whether she will miss it! Perhaps she will have no fancy for its company any longer, now that she has discovered what over-palpable archangels appear when she rubs it. But if she does try to recover it.... why—let her try her strength with mine—or, rather, with a Christian mob.'

And then, drawing from her bosom the other half of the talisman, she fitted the two pieces together again and again, fingering them over, and poring upon them with tear-brimming eyes, till she had satisfied herself that the fracture still fitted exactly; while she murmured to herself from time to time—'Oh, that he were here! Oh, that he would return now—now! It may be too late to-morrow! Stay—I will go and consult the teraph; it may know where he is....'

And she departed to her incantations; while Hypatia threw herself upon her bed at home, and filled the chamber with a long, low wailing, as of a child in pain, until the dreary dawn broke on her shame and her despair. And then she rose, and rousing herself for one great effort, calmly prepared a last oration, in which she intended to bid farewell for ever to Alexandria and to the schools.

Philammon meanwhile was striding desperately up the main street which led towards the Serapeium. But he was not destined to arrive there as soon as he had hoped to do. For ere he had gone half a mile, behold a crowd advancing towards him blocking up the whole street.

The mass seemed endless. Thousands of torches flared above their heads, and from the heart of the procession rose a solemn chant, in which Philammon soon recognised a well-known Catholic hymn. He was half minded to turn up some by-street, and escape meeting them. But on attempting to do so, he found every avenue which he tried similarly blocked up by a tributary stream of people; and, almost ere he was aware, was entangled in the vanguard of the great column.

'Let me pass!'cried he in a voice of entreaty.

'Pass, thou heathen?'

In vain he protested his Christianity.

'Origenist, Donatist, heretic! Whither should a good Catholic be going to-night, save to the Caesareum?'

'My friends, my friends, I have no business at the Caesareum!' cried he, in utter despair. 'I am on my way to seek a private interview with the patriarch, on matters of importance.'

'Oh, liar! who pretends to be known to the patriarch, and yet is ignorant that this night he visits at the Caesareum the most sacred corpse of the martyr Ammonius!'

'What! Is Cyril with you?'

'He and all his clergy.'

'Better so; better in public,' said Philammon to himself; and, turning, he joined the crowd.

Onward, with chant and dirge, they swept out through the Sun-gate, upon the harbour esplanade, and wheeled to the right along the quay, while the torchlight bathed in a red glare the great front of the Caesareum, and the tall obelisks before it, and the masts of the thousand ships which lay in the harbour on their left; and last, but not least, before the huge dim mass of the palace which bounded the esplanade in front, a long line of glittering helmets and cuirasses, behind a barrier of cables which stretched from the shore to the corner of the museum.

There was a sudden halt; a low ominous growl; and then the mob pressed onward from behind, surged up almost to the barrier. The soldiers dropped the points of their lances, and stood firm. Again the mob recoiled; again surged forward. Fierce cries arose; some of the boldest stooped to pick up stones: but, luckily, the pavement was too firm for them....Another moment, and the whole soldiery of Alexandria would have been fighting for life and death against fifty thousand Christians....

But Cyril had not forgotten his generalship. Reckless as that night's events proved him to be about arousing the passions of his subjects, he was yet far too wary to risk the odium and the danger of a night attack, which, even if successful, would have cost the lives of hundreds. He knew well enough the numbers and the courage of the enemy, and the certainty that, in case of a collision, no quarter would be given or accepted on either side.... Beside, if a battle must take place—and that, of course, must happen sooner or later—it must not happen in his presence and under his sanction. He was in the right now, and Orestes in the wrong; and in the right he would keep—at least till his express to Byzantium should have returned, and Orestes was either proscribed or superseded. So looking forward to some such chance as this, the wary prelate had schooled his aides-de-camp, the deacons of the city, and went on his way up the steps of the Caesareum, knowing that they could be trusted to keep the peace outside.

And they did their work well. Before a blow had been struck, or even an insult passed on either side, they had burst through the front rank of the mob, and by stout threats of excommunication, enjoined not only peace, but absolute silence until the sacred ceremony which was about to take place should be completed; and enforced their commands by marching up and down like sentries between the hostile ranks for the next weary two hours, till the very soldiers broke out into expressions of admiration, and the tribune of the cohort, who ad no great objection, but also no great wish, fight, paid them a high-flown compliment on their laudable endeavours to maintain public order, and received the somewhat ambiguous reply, that the 'weapons of their warfare were not carnal, that they wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers,'.... an answer which the tribune, being now somewhat sleepy, thought it best to leave unexplained.

In the meanwhile, there had passed up the steps of the Temple a gorgeous line of priests, among whom glittered, more gorgeous than all, the stately figure of the pontiff. They were followed close by thousands of monks, not only from Alexandria and Nitria, but from all the adjoining towns and monasteries. And as Philammon, unable for some half hour more to force his way into the church, watched their endless stream, he could well believe the boast which he had so often heard in Alexandria, that one half of the population of Egypt was at that moment in 'religious orders.'

After the monks, the laity began to enter but even then so vast was the crowd, and so dense the crush upon the steps, that before he could force his way into the church, Cyril's sermon had begun. ...............

—'What went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Nay, such are in kings' palaces, and in the palaces of prefects who would needs be emperors, and cast away the Lord's bonds from them—of whom it is written, that He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth them to scorn, and taketh the wicked in their own snare, and maketh the devices of princes of none effect. Ay, in king's palaces, and in theatres too, where the rich of this world, poor in faith, deny their covenant, and defile their baptismal robes that they may do honour to the devourers of the earth. Woe to them who think that they may partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Woe to them who will praise with the same mouth Aphrodite the fiend, and her of whom it is written that He was born of a pure Virgin. Let such be excommunicate from the cup of the Lord, and from the congregation of the Lord, till they have purged away their sins by penance and by almsgiving. But for you, ye poor of this world, rich in faith, you whom the rich despise, hale before the judgment seats, and blaspheme that holy name whereby ye are called—what went ye out into the wilderness to see? A prophet?—Ay, and more than a prophet—a martyr! More than a prophet, more than a king, more than a prefect whose theatre was the sands of the desert, whose throne was the cross, whose crown was bestowed, not by heathen philosophers and daughters of Satan, deceiving men with the works of their fathers, but by angels and archangels; a crown of glory, the victor's laurel, which grows for ever in the paradise of the highest heaven. Call him no more Ammonius, call him Thaumasius, wonderful! Wonderful in his poverty, wonderful in his zeal, wonderful in his faith, wonderful in his fortitude, wonderful in his death, most wonderful in the manner of that death. Oh thrice blessed, who has merited the honour of the cross itself! What can follow, but that one so honoured in the flesh should also be honoured in the life which he now lives, and that from the virtue of these thrice-holy limbs the leper should be cleansed, the dumb should speak, the very dead be raised? Yes; it were impiety to doubt it. Consecrated by the cross, this flesh shall not only rest in hope but work in power. Approach, and be healed! Approach, and see the glory of the saints, the glory of the poor. Approach, and learn that that which man despises, God hath highly esteemed; that that which man rejects, God accepts; that that which man punishes, God rewards. Approach, and see how God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things of this world to confound the strong. Man abhors the cross: The Son of God condescended to endure it! Man tramples on the poor: The Son of God hath not where to lay His head. Man passes by the sick as useless: The Son of God chooses them to be partakers of His sufferings, that the glory of God may be made manifest in them. Man curses the publican, while he employs him to fill his coffers with the plunder of the poor: The Son of God calls him from the receipt of custom to be an apostle, higher than the kings of the earth. Man casts away the harlot like a faded flower, when he has tempted her to become the slave of sin for a season; and the Son of God calls her, the defiled, the despised, the forsaken, to Himself, accepts her tears, blesses her offering, and declares that her sins are forgiven, for she hath loved much; while to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little....'

Philammon heard no more. With the passionate and impulsive nature of a Greek fanatic, he burst forward through the crowd, towards the steps which led to the choir, and above which, in front of the altar, stood the corpse of Ammonius, enclosed in a coffin of glass, beneath a gorgeous canopy; and never stopping till he found himself in front of Cyril's pulpit, he threw himself upon his face upon the pavement, spread out his arms in the form of a cross, and lay silent and motionless before the feet of the multitude.

There was a sudden whisper and rustle in the congregation: but Cyril, after a moment's pause, went on—

'Man, in his pride and self-sufficiency, despises humiliation, and penance, and the broken and the contrite heart; and tells thee that only as long as thou doest well unto thyself will he speak well of thee: the Son of God says that he that humbleth himself, even as this our penitent brother, he it is who shall be exalted. He it is of whom it is written that his father saw him afar off, and ran to meet him, and bade put the best robe on him, and a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and make merry and be glad with the choir of angels who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. Arise, my son, whoso-ever thou art; and go in peace for this night, remembering that he who said, "My belly cleaveth unto the pavement," hath also said, "Rejoice not against me, Satan, mine enemy, for when I fall I shall arise!"'

A thunder-clap of applause, surely as pardonable as any an Alexandrian church ever heard, followed this dexterous, and yet most righteous, turn of the patriarch's oratory: but Philammon raised himself slowly and fearfully to his knees, and blushing scarlet endured the gaze of ten thousand eyes.

Suddenly, from beside the pulpit, an old man sprang forward, and clasped him round the neck. It was Arsenius.

'My son! my son!' sobbed he, almost aloud.

'Slave, as well as son, if you will!' whispered Philammon. 'One boon from the patriarch; and then home to the Laura for ever!'

'Oh, twice-blest night,' rolled on above the deep rich voice of Cyril, 'which beholds at once the coronation of a martyr and the conversion of a sinner; which increases at the same time the ranks of the church triumphant, and of the church militant; and pierces celestial essences with a twofold rapture of thanksgiving, as they welcome on high a victorious, and on earth a repentant, brother!'

And at a sign from Cyril, Peter the Reader stepped forward, and led away, gently enough, the two weepers, who were welcomed as they passed by the blessings, and prayers, and tears even of those fierce fanatics of Nitria. Nay, Peter himself, as he turned to leave them together in the sacristy, held out his hand to Philammon.

'I ask your forgiveness,' said the poor boy, who plunged eagerly and with a sort of delight into any and every self-abasement.

'And I accord it,' quoth Peter; and returned to the church, looking, and probably feeling, in a far more pleasant mood than usual.



CHAPTER XXVII: THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN

About ten o'clock the next morning, as Hypatia, worn out with sleepless sorrow, was trying to arrange her thoughts for the farewell lecture, her favourite maid announced that a messenger from Synesius waited below. A letter from Synesius? A gleam of hope flashed across her mind. From him, surely, might come something of comfort, of advice. Ah! if he only knew how sorely she was bested!

'Let him send up his letter.'

'He refuses to deliver it to any one but yourself. And I think,'—added the damsel, who had, to tell the truth, at that moment in her purse a substantial reason for so thinking—'I think it might be worth your ladyship's while to see him.'

Hypatia shook her head impatiently.

'He seems to know you well, madam, though he refuses to tell his name: but he bade me put you in mind of a black agate—I cannot tell what he meant—of a black agate, and a spirit which was to appear when you rubbed it.'

Hypatia turned pale as death. Was it Philammon again? She felt for the talisman—it was gone! She must have lost it last night in Miriam's chamber. Now she saw the true purpose of the old hag's plot—....deceived, tricked, doubly tricked! And what new plot was this?

'Tell him to leave the letter, and begone.... My father? What? Who is this? Who are you bringing to me at such a moment?'

And as she spoke, Theon ushered into the chamber no other than Raphael Aben-Ezra, and then retired.

He advanced slowly towards her, and falling on one knee, placed in her hand Synesius's letter.

Hypatia trembled from head to foot at the unexpected apparition.... Well; at least he could know nothing of last night and its disgrace. But not daring to look him in the face, she took the letter and opened it.... If she had hoped for comfort from it, her hope was not realised.

'Synesius to the Philosopher:

'Even if Fortune cannot take from me all things, yet what she can take she will. And yet of two things, at least, she shall not rob me—to prefer that which is best, and to succour the oppressed. Heaven forbid that she should overpower my judgment, as well as the rest of me! Therefore I do hate injustice; for that I can do: and my will is to stop it; but the power to do so is among the things of which she has bereaved me-before, too, she bereaved me of my children....

'"Once, in old times, Milesian men were strong."

And there was a time when I, too, was a comfort to my friends, and when you used to call me a blessing to every one except myself, as I squandered for the benefit of others the favour with which the great regarded me.... My hands they were—then.... But now I am left desolate of all: unless you have any power. For you and virtue I count among those good things, of which none can deprive me. But you always have power, and will have it, surely, now—using it as nobly as you do.

'As for Nicaeus and Philolaus, two noble youths, and kinsmen of my own, let it be the business of all who honour you, both private men and magistrates, to see that they return possessors of their just rights.' [Footnote: An authentic letter of Synesius to Hypatia.]

'Of all who honour me!' said she, with a bitter sigh: and then looked up quickly at Raphael, as if fearful of having betrayed herself. She turned deadly pale. In his eyes was a look of solemn pity, which told her that he knew—not all?—surely not all?

'Have you seen the—Miriam?' gasped she, rushing desperately at that which she most dreaded.

'Not yet. I arrived but one hour ago; and Hypatia's welfare is still more important to me than my own.'

'My welfare? It is gone!'

'So much the better. I never found mine till I lost it.'

'What do you mean?'

Raphael lingered, yet without withdrawing his gaze, as if he had something of importance to say, which he longed and yet feared to utter. At last—

'At least, you will confess that I am better drest than when we met last. I have returned, you see, like a certain demoniac of Gadara, about whom we used to argue, clothed—and perhaps also in my right mind.... God knows!'

'Raphael! are you come here to mock me? You know—you cannot have been here an hour without knowing—that but yesterday I dreamed of being'—and she drooped her eyes—'an empress; that to-day I am ruined; to-morrow, perhaps, proscribed. Have you no speech for me but your old sarcasms and ambiguities?'

Raphael stood silent and motionless.

'Why do you not speak? What is the meaning of this sad, earnest look, so different from your former self?.... You have something strange to tell me!'

'I have,' said he, speaking very slowly. 'What—what would Hypatia answer if, after all, Aben-Ezra said like the dying Julian, "The Galilean has conquered"?'

'Julian never said it! It is a monkish calumny.'

'But I say it.'

'Impossible!'

'I say it!'

'As your dying speech? The true Raphael Aben-Ezra, then, lives no more!'

'But he may be born again.'

'And die to philosophy, that he may be born again into barbaric superstition! Oh worthy metempsychosis! Farewell, sir!' And she rose to go.

'Hear me!—hear me patiently this once, noble, beloved Hypatia! One more sneer of yours, and I may become again the same case-hardened fiend which you knew me of old—to all, at least, but you. Oh, do not think me ungrateful, forgetful! What do I not owe to you, whose pure and lofty words alone kept smouldering in me the dim remembrance that there was a Right, a Truth, an unseen world of spirits, after whose pattern man should aspire to live?'

She paused, and listened in wonder. What faith had she of her own? She would at least hear what he had found....

'Hypatia, I am older than you—wiser than you, if wisdom be the fruit of the tree of knowledge. You know but one side of the medal, Hypatia, and the fairer; I have seen its reverse as well as its obverse. Through every form of human thought, of human action, of human sin and folly, have I been wandering for years, and found no rest—as little in wisdom as in folly, in spiritual dreams as in sensual brutality. I could not rest in your Platonism—I will tell you why hereafter. I went on to Stoicism, Epicurism, Cynicism, Scepticism, and in that lowest deep I found a lower depth, when I became sceptical of Scepticism itself.'

'There is a lower deep still,' thought Hypatia to herself, as she recollected last night's magic; but she did not speak.

'Then in utter abasement, I confessed myself lower than the brutes, who had a law, and obeyed it, while I was my own lawless God, devil, harpy, whirlwind.... I needed even my own dog to awaken in me the brute consciousness of my own existence, or of anything without myself. I took her, the dog, for my teacher, and obeyed her, for she was wiser than I. And she led me back—the poor dumb beast—like a God-sent and God-obeying angel, to human nature, to mercy, to self-sacrifice, to belief, to worship—to pure and wedded love.'

Hypatia started.... And in the struggle to hide her own bewilderment, answered almost without knowing it—

'Wedded love?.... Wedded love? Is that, then, the paltry bait by which Raphael Aben-Ezra has been tempted to desert philosophy?'

'Thank Heaven!' said Raphael to himself. 'She does not care for me, then! If she had, pride would have kept her from that sneer.' Yes, my dear lady,' answered he aloud, 'to desert philosophy, to search after wisdom; because wisdom itself had sought for me, and found me. But, indeed, I had hoped that you would have approved of my following your example for once in my life, and resolving, like you, to enter into the estate of wedlock.'

'Do not sneer at me!' cried she, in her turn, looking up at him with shame and horror, which made him repent of uttering the words. 'If you do not know—you will soon, too soon! Never mention that hateful dream to me, if you wish to have speech of me more!'

A pang of remorse shot through Raphael's heart. Who but he himself had plotted that evil marriage? But she gave him no opportunity of answering her, and went on hurriedly—

'Speak to me rather about yourself. What is this strange and sudden betrothal? What has it to do with Christianity? I had thought that it was rather by the glories of celibacy—gross and superstitious as their notions of it are—that the Galileans tempted their converts.'

'So had I, my dearest lady,' answered he, as, glad to turn the subject for a moment, and perhaps a little nettled by her contemptuous tone, he resumed something of his old arch and careless manner. 'But—there is no accounting for man's agreeable inconsistencies—one morning I found myself, to my astonishment, seized by two bishops, and betrothed, whether I chose or not, to a young lady who but a few days before had been destined for a nunnery.'

'Two bishops?'

'I speak simple truth. The one was Synesius of course;—that most incoherent and most benevolent of busybodies chose to betray me behind my back:-but I will not trouble you with that part of my story. The real wonder is that the other episcopal match-maker was Augustine of Hippo himself!'