"My destiny!" Eckhardt replied. "Monk, do not mock me! If thou hast any mystic power, read my soul and measure its misery. I have no destiny, save despair."
The monk regarded him strangely.
"Because a woman is false and thy soul is weak, thou needest not at once make bosom friends with despair. It is a long time since I have been in the world. It is a long time since I have abjured its vanities. Let him who has withstood the terrible temptation, cast the first stone. For the flesh is weak and the sin is as old as the world; And perchance even the monk may be able to counsel, to guide thee in some matters,—for verily thou standest on the brink of a precipice."
"I am well-nigh mad!" Eckhardt replied wearily. "Were there but a ray of light to guide my steps."
Nilus pointed upward.
"All light flows from the fountain-head of truth. Be true to thyself! Life is duty! In its fulfilment alone can there be happiness,—and in the renunciation of that, which has been denied us by the Supreme Wisdom. No more than thou canst reverse the wheel of time, no more canst thou compel that dark power, Fate. And at best—what matters it for the short space of this earthly existence? For believe me, the End of Time is nigh,—and in the beyond all will be as if it had never been."
Nilus paused and their eyes met. And in silence Eckhardt followed the monk among the ruins of the latter's abode.
As the morning dawned, some fishermen dragging their nets off St. Bartholomew's island pulled up from the muddy waves the body of an old man clad in the loose garb of a monk. But as the day grew older a new crime and fresh scandal filled Forum and wine shops and the incident was forgotten ere night-fall.
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAST TRYST