“If thou givest thyself to me, thinkest thou it is hidden from God?”

She shook her head.

“God?  Who forces Him to keep His eye always upon the Grotto of Nymphs?  Let Him go away if we offend Him!  But why should we offend Him?  Since He has created us, He can be neither angry nor surprised to see us as He made us, and acting according to the nature He has given us.  A good deal too much is said on His behalf, and He is often credited with ideas He never had.  You yourself, stranger, do you know His true character?  Who are you that you should speak to me in His name?”

At this question the monk, opening his borrowed robe, showed the cassock, and said—­

“I am Paphnutius, Abbot of Antinoe, and I come from the holy desert.  The hand that drew Abraham from Chaldaea and Lot from Sodom has separated me from the present age.  I no longer existed for the men of this century.  But thy image appeared to me in my sandy Jerusalem, and I knew that thou wert full of corruption, and death was in thee.  And now I am before thee, woman, as before a grave, and I cry unto thee, ‘Thais, arise!’”

At the words, Paphnutius, monk, and abbot, she had turned pale with fright.  And now, with dishevelled hair and joined hands, weeping and groaning, she dragged herself to the feet of the saint.

“Do not hurt me!  Why have you come?  What do you want of me?  Do not hurt me!  I know that the saints of the desert hate women who, like me, are made to please.  I am afraid that you hate me, and want to hurt me.  Go!  I do not doubt your power.  But know, Paphnutius, that you should neither despise me nor hate me.  I have never, like many of the men I know, laughed at your voluntary poverty.  In your turn, do not make a crime of my riches.  I am beautiful, and clever in acting.  I no more chose my condition than my nature.  I was made for that which I do.  I was born to charm men.  And you yourself, did you not say just now that you loved me?  Do not use your science against me.  Do not pronounce magic words which would destroy my beauty, or change me into a statue of salt.  Do not terrify me!  I am already too frightened.  Do not kill me!  I am so afraid of death.”

He made a sign to her to rise, and said—­

“Child, have no fear.  I will utter no word of shame or scorn.  I come on behalf of Him who sat on the edge of the well, and drank of the pitcher which the woman of Samaria offered to Him; and who, also, when He supped at the house of Simon, received the perfumes of Mary.  I am not without sin that I should throw the first stone.  I have often badly employed the abundant grace which God has bestowed upon me.  It was not anger, but pity, which took me by the hand to conduct me here.  I can, without deceit, address thee in words of love, for it is the zeal in my heart which has brought me to thee.  I burn with the fire of charity, and if thy eyes, accustomed only to the gross sights of the flesh, could see things in their mystic aspect, I should appear unto thee as a branch broken off the burning bush which the Lord showed on the mountain to Moses of old, that he might understand true love—­that which envelops us, and which, so far from leaving behind it mere coals and ashes, purifies and perfumes for ever that which it penetrates.”