Sirona nodded. “I heard it from Paulus,” she answered. “Now I am quite alone in the world.”
“Not so,” replied Petrus. “You will find shelter and love under our roof as if it were your father’s, so long as it suits you to stay with us. You need not thank us—we are deeply in your debt. Farewell till we meet again wife. I would Polykarp were safe here, and that you had seen his wound. Come, Marthana, the minutes are precious.”
When Dorothea and Sirona were alone, the deaconess said, “Now I will go and make up a bed for you, for you must be very tired.”
“No, no!” begged Sirona. “I will wait and watch with you, for I certainly could not sleep till I know how it is with him.” She spoke so warmly and eagerly that the deaconess gratefully offered her hand to her young friend. Then she said, “I will leave you alone for a few minutes, for my heart is so full of anxiety that I must needs go and pray for help for him, and for courage and strength for myself.”
“Take me with you,” entreated Sirona in a low tone. “In my need I opened my heart to your good and loving God, and I will never more pray to any other. The mere thought of Him strengthened and comforted me, and now, if ever, in this hour I need His merciful support.”
“My child, my daughter!” cried the deaconess, deeply moved; she bent over Sirona, kissed her forehead and her lips, and led her by the hand into her quiet sleeping-room.
“This is the place where I most love to pray,” she said, “although there is here no image and no altar. My God is everywhere present and in every place I can find Him.”
The two women knelt down side by side, and both besought the same God for the same mercies—not for themselves, but for another; and both in their sorrow could give thanks—Sirona, because in Dorothea she had found a mother, and Dorothea, because in Sirona she had found a dear and loving daughter.