‘Oh, father, spare him!’ said Junia.
Nereus still kept his foot on the prostrate youth, still held the dagger in his hand; his eyes still flashed, his whole frame was dilated with righteous indignation. He had misunderstood the meaning of the scene.
‘Explain!’ he said. ‘Junia! You here alone with Onesimus in the vine-walk, at the lonely noon! How did he inveigle you here? Did he dare to insult you?’
The girl had risen; and while Onesimus lay on the ground, stunned with the violence of his fall, she told her father all that had happened.
Nereus spurned the youth with his foot.
‘And I once thought,’ he said, ‘that he was a secret Christian! I once thought that some day he might be worthy to be the husband of my Junia! A thief! a would-be murderer! This comes of harbouring a strange Phrygian in an honest household.’
‘Father, forgive him!’ said Junia. ‘Are not we forgiven?’
‘The wrong to me—the threat against the life of the child I love—yes, that might be forgiven,’ said Nereus; ‘forgiven if repented of. But how can I do otherwise than tell Pudens? How can I keep this youth a member of the household?’
And again, moved by strong passion, he spurned him with his foot.
‘Is there one house in Rome, father,’ she said, ‘in which there are not thieves? in which there are not men—aye, and women too—who steal, and would murder if they could? Is he worse than thousands whom yet we do not see chained in the prisons or rotting on the crosses? And have we not all sinned? and did not Jesus say, “Forgive one another your trespasses”?’