There Philammon awaited a full half-hour. It seemed to him hours, days, years. And yet Raphael did not return: and yet no guards appeared. Was the strange Jew a traitor? Impossible!—his face had shown a desperate earnestness of terror as intense as Philammon’s own.... Yet why did he not return?
Perhaps he had found out that the streets were clear; their mutual fears groundless.... What meant that black knot of men some two hundred yards off, hanging about the mouth of the side street, just opposite the door which led to her lecture-room? He moved to watch them: they had vanished. He lay down again and waited.... There they were again. It was a suspicious post. That street ran along the back of the Caesareum, a favourite haunt of monks, communicating by innumerable entries and back buildings with the great Church itself.... And yet, why should there not be a knot of monks there? What more common in every street of Alexandria? He tried to laugh away his own fears. And yet they ripened, by the very intensity of thinking on them, into certainty. He knew that something terrible was at hand. More than once he looked out from his hiding-place—the knot of men were still there;.... it seemed to have increased, to draw nearer. If they found him, what would they not suspect? What did he care? He would die for her, if it came to that—not that it could come to that: but still he must speak to her—he must warn her. Passenger after passenger, carriage after carriage passed along the street: student after student entered the lecture-room; but he never saw them, not though they passed him close. The sun rose higher and higher, and turned his whole blaze upon the corner where Philammon crouched, till the pavement scorched like hot iron, and his eyes were dazzled by the blinding glare: but he never heeded it. His whole heart, and sense, and sight, were riveted upon that well-known door, expecting it to open....
At last a curricle, glittering with silver, rattled round the corner and stopped opposite him. She must becoming now. The crowd had vanished. Perhaps it was, after all, a fancy of his own. No; there they were, peeping round the corner, close to the lecture-room—the hell-hounds! A slave brought out an embroidered cushion—and then Hypatia herself came forth, looking more glorious than ever; her lips set in a sad firm smile; her eyes uplifted, inquiring, eager, and yet gentle, dimmed by some great inward awe, as if her soul was far away aloft, and face to face with God.
In a moment he sprang up to her, caught her robe convulsively, threw himself on his knees before her—
‘Stop! Stay! You are going to destruction!’
Calmly she looked down upon him.
‘Accomplice of witches! Would you make of Theon’s daughter a traitor like yourself?’
He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied with shame and despair....
She believed him guilty, then!.... It was the will of God!
The plumes of the horses were waving far down the street before he recovered himself, and rushed after her, shouting he knew not what.