"You are awake!" said Sophronia. "Look me in the face. I am Sophronia, the friend of your childhood."
"But this cup of blood——"
"Blood only for those who believe, the remembrance of blood for those who remember. Touch it with your lips."
With ill-repressed loathing Manlius tried the contents of the cup and stammered in amazement:
"This is wine." Then, in a low tone, seized by a fear hitherto unknown, he asked: "And that dying figure?"
"Is the image of the crucified Saviour."
Manlius perceived with astonishment that it was only a painted picture.
"Do you worship a dead man?"
"A god who became man to die."
"That is impossible."