“We have only been here a few days,” replied the girl timidly, as she ventured to raise her eyes to the handsome face of this princely prelate, whose fine, pale features looked as if they had been carved out of marble.
“Then go to partake of the sacred Eucharist in the basilica of Mary,” replied the Bishop. “It is just now the hour—but no, stop. You are a stranger here you say; you have run away from your master—and you are young, very young and very.... It is dark too. Where are you intending to sleep?”
“I do not know,” said Agne, and her eyes filled with tears.
“That is what I call courage!” murmured Theophilus to the priest, and then he added to Agne: “Well, thanks to the saints, we have asylums for such as you, here in the city. That scribe will give you a document which will secure your admission to one. So you come from Antioch? Then there is the refuge of Seleucus of Antioch. To what parish—[Parochia in Latin]—did your parents belong?”
“To that of John the Baptist?”
“Where Damascius was the preacher?”
“Yes, holy Father. He was the shepherd of our souls.”
“What! Damascius the Arian?” cried the Bishop. He drew his fine and stately figure up to its most commanding height and closed his thin lips in august contempt, while Irenaeus, clasping his hands in horror, asked her:
“And you—do you, too, confess the heresy of Arius?”
“My parents were Arians,” replied Agne in much surprise. “They taught me to worship the godlike Saviour.”