I followed the two; stood by while they bent the knee to the altar-step and made the sign of the cross. The superior priest turned to me.
“You know, do you not, that Timothy is buried here, also,” touching a tablet upon which was cut one word—“Timothei.”
“I hope so!” answered I, wistfully.
Was it wrong to hold lovingly the desire—almost the belief—that the “beloved son” had taken alarm at the import and tone of the second epistle from “Paul the Aged,” and come long enough before winter to brighten his last days? “It is possible,” students and professors of Church History concede to those who crave this rounding of a “finished” life. It seemed almost sure, with Paul’s name above us and Timothy’s under my hand.
My new friend smiled. “We believe it. Timothy’s body was brought to Rome after his martyrdom—he outlived his master many years—and interred beside him in the Catacomb of St. Lucina.”
“I know the legend,” I said; “it is very beautiful.”
“It is customary,” the priest went on to say, “to lay chaplets upon the shrine. But you are an American,” another grave smile. “Would you like to look into the tomb?”
He opened a grating in the front of the altar. By leaning forward, I fancied I saw a dark object in the deep recess.
“The sarcophagus is of silver. A cross of gold lies upon it. Then, there is an outer case.”
He knelt, reached the hand holding the beads as far through the opening as his arm would go, and arose.