For a moment or two the praefect was silent. His hand rested on his friend's shoulder, and his eyes, with their deep furrow between the brows, were fixed on the kind face that invited confidence.
"For seven years," he said abruptly, but speaking very slowly, "whilst I served the Cæsar, every one of my waking thoughts and many of my dreams tended to that day in Jerusalem and the three hours' agony which I had witnessed on Golgotha. Yesterday did a woman cross my path—and now I have thoughts only of her."
"Who is this woman?" asked the other.
"She is of the House of Cæsar, pure and chaste as the lilies in my garden at Ostia, proud and unapproachable as the stars ... her heart is a closed book wherein man hath never read ... but since her eyes have mocked me with their smile, my heart is enchained to her service and I see naught but her loveliness."
"Look upwards, man; a glowing Cross will blind thine eyes to all save to itself."
"Have I not looked," said the praefect, with a sharp, quick sigh, "until mine eyes have ached with trying to see that which once was so clear. But now, between me and that sacred memory that methought had been branded into my very soul, there always rises the vision of a girl, tall and slender as the lilies, clad all in white as they. She stands between me and memory, and mine eyes grow weary and dim trying to see beyond that vision, recalling to my mind the picture of that Cross, the thorn-crowned head, the pierced hands and feet. She stands between me and memory, and with laughing eyes defies me not to see her, and I look and look, and the vision of the Cross grows more faint, and she stands there serene and white and silent, with blue eyes smiling on my treachery and scornful voice upraised, denying God and Christ. She is of the House of Cæsar and she is ignorant, and she laughs at my belief and scorns all thought of God, and I do find it in my treacherous heart to pity her and pitying her to kneel at her feet. And all the while a thousand demons shout mockingly unto mine ear: 'Thou art a traitor—a traitor to thy God—for were she to beckon, 'tis to her that thou wouldst go, forgetting all—thine immortal soul, thy crucified God...?' And thus do devils mock me, and my soul grows darker and darker and greater and greater grows the mystery, for my heart, broken, miserably doubting and weak, cries out not with resignation, not in patience, but in a spirit of angry rebellion: 'God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?'"
He raised his arms up to heaven as if in a last desperate appeal; but now he did not kneel—he stood beside his friend shamed and yet proud, and the look in his eyes was that of one who sees a vision that is exquisitely beautiful and dear. The other saw the look, and with the kind indulgence taught by a sublime teacher, he found it in his heart to pity and to love. Once more he placed his thin, wrinkled hand on the praefect's shoulder, and his small eyes beamed with perfect faith and trust as he said gently:
"Do not try and probe any mystery just now, O friend, the day has been long and thou art weary and sad. Come and sit beside me here at table; my mother will join us and the girl Nola too, and the man who is thy slave, if thou wilt so allow it. Together we'll think of that day in Judæa seven years ago, and we'll break bread and drink wine, and—without trying to understand anything—we'll do it all together in memory of Him!"
For a moment Taurus Antinor was silent. In the strong face every line told of the great storm within the innermost heart.
And slowly the man beside him repeated the most exquisite words that have ever been spoken to a troubled soul.