Next he put his head out cautiously, first at one, then at another of the windows which looked on to the street, drawing it in every time that any one approached. At last he flung himself down upon the silken couch as comfortable and at ease as if he had never lain on a monk's hard bed. Then he roused himself, put his dress straight, and stole in high excitement to the street-door. There he still hesitated a moment; but suddenly he flung it wide open, and went out into the world a magnificent and imposing figure. No one recognized him; every one took him for some fine gentleman from abroad, who was enjoying a few gay days at Alexandria.
He looked neither to right nor left, else he would have seen Iole on her house-top. So he went straight back to his convent, where, however, all the monks and their superior had just resolved to expel him from their fellowship; for the measure of his iniquities was now full, and he contributed only to the scandal and disgrace of the Church. The sight of him, actually coming among them in his worldly gallant's attire, knocked the bottom out of the tub of their patience; they drenched him and doused him with water from all sides, and drove him with crosses, besoms, pitchforks and kitchen-ladles out of the convent.
Once on a time this rough handling would have been the height of felicity to him, and a triumph of his martyrdom. True, he laughed inwardly even now, but for a somewhat different reason. He took one more stroll round about the city-walls, and let his red cloak wave in the wind. A fine breeze from the Holy Land blew across the sparkling sea; but Vitalis was becoming more and more worldly-minded. Suddenly he retraced his steps into the bustling streets of the city, sought the house where Iole dwelt, and did what she wished.
He now made as excellent and complete a layman and husband as he had been a martyr. The Church, however, when she understood the real facts of the case, was inconsolable over the loss of such a saint, and made every endeavour to recall the fugitive to her bosom. But Iole held him fast and gave it to be understood that he was in very good hands with her.
[DOROTHEA'S FLOWER-BASKET]
To lose oneself so is rather to find oneself.
Franciscus Ludovicus Blosius,
Spiritual Instruction, c. 12.
On the south coast of the Euxine sea, not far from the mouth of the river Halys, a Roman country-house lay in the light of the brightest of spring mornings. From the waters of the sea a north-east wind wafted a refreshing coolness through the gardens, as grateful to the pagans and to the secret Christians as it was to the trembling leaves upon the trees.
In a summer-house by the sea-shore, shut off from the rest of the world, stood a young couple, a handsome young man with the daintiest maiden imaginable. She was holding out a large, beautifully-shaped bowl of translucent, warm-hued marble for the youth to admire, and the morning sun shone with great effect through the bowl, so that its ruddy glow concealed the blush on the maiden's visage.
She was Dorothea, a patrician's daughter, to whom Fabricius, governor of the province of Cappadocia, was paying assiduous court. But as he was a bigoted persecutor of the Christians, and Dorothea's parents felt attracted by the new philosophy of life and were making diligent endeavours to adopt it, they were offering the best resistance they could to the powerful inquisitor's importunity. Not that they wished to involve their children in religious controversies, or that they would condescend to barter their hearts for a faith--they were too noble and liberal for that; but they were of opinion that a religious persecutor would never make a good heart's consoler.