Fabiola shrouded her face with her hands, and then looking up earnestly into Syra’s face, said to her:
“I am sure that, after having so clearly described to me the deep sense of responsibility under which you must habitually speak, as well as act, you have a real meaning in this awful saying, though I understand you not.”
“As surely as every word of mine is heard, as every thought of mine is seen, it is a truth which I have spoken.”
“I have not strength to carry the subject further at present; my mind has need of rest.”
A Monogram of Christ, found in the Catacombs.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.
The next morning had been fixed for one of those visits which used to be annually paid in the country,—that to the now ex-prefect of the city, Chromatius. Our reader will remember, that after his conversion and resignation of office, this magistrate had retired to his villa in Campania, taking with him a number of the converts made by Sebastian, with the holy priest Polycarp, to complete their instruction. Of these circumstances, of course, Fabiola had never been informed; but she heard all sorts of curious reports about Chromatius’s villa. It was said that he had a number of visitors never before seen at his house; that he gave no entertainments; that he had freed all his country slaves, but that many of them had preferred remaining with him; that if numerous, the whole establishment seemed very happy, though no boisterous sports or frolicsome meetings seemed to be indulged in. All this stimulated Fabiola’s curiosity, in addition to her wish to discharge a pleasing duty of courtesy to a most kind friend of hers from childhood; and she longed to see, with her own eyes, what appeared to her to be a very Platonic, or, as we should say, Utopian, experiment.