He mounted to the huge root, coiled upon itself like a serpent, making a seat for the Vandal girl.
“Roman—Roman!” she said. “To whom were you kneeling over there?”
Victorinus had now, in some sufficiency, the language of the questioner. And he had his voice of gold and honey, and his eloquence of the mind, and the fire that burned in him, and the light behind the fire. Alleda listened, and her eyes were wistful, for within, and that before Victorinus’s arrival, she had become the seeker. She listened, and when she rose to retrace her steps to Terig’s house she said, “I will come again and listen.”
“To-morrow?”
“Yes, to-morrow.”
Day after day she turned her steps where she might meet the stranger with his message from a world out of this world. They met oftenest in the glade before the church, under trees where sang all the birds. The little timber building stood before them while Victorinus the bishop painted the Church, the spiritual Bride and Mother. He drew with strength and beauty, he painted with lovely colours; enthusiast, he was skilful to lift the soul into that fragrant air, to press to its lips the cup of sober inebriation. The chapel stood before them, the lodge and the garden that the ten brethren were making. Over all played the sunshine, sailed the white clouds.
“Where do you go?” asked Fritha of Alleda.
“I go to hear that Roman talk of his god. His god speaks to my heart more than do our gods.”
“Our gods are good enough for Terig and me.”
“I say naught against them,” said Alleda, “but I climb past.”