“I loved her dearly,” said Marthana, “and will lay my sweetest flowers on her grave.  May I cut some sprays from your blooming myrtle for a wreath?”

“To-morrow, to-morrow, my child,” replied Dorothea.  “Now go to rest; it is already very late.”

“Only let me stay till Antonius and Jethro come back,” begged the girl.

“I would willingly help you to find your son,” said Hermas, “and if you wish I will go to Raithu and Klysma, and enquire among the fishermen.  Had the centurion—­” and as he spoke the young soldier looked down in some embarrassment, “had the centurion found his fugitive wife of whom he was in pursuit with Talib, the Amalekite, before he died?”

“Sirona has not yet reappeared,” replied Petrus, and perhaps—­but just now you mentioned the name of Paulus, who was so dear to you and your father.  Do you know that it was he who so shamelessly ruined the domestic peace of the centurion?”

“Paulus!” cried Hermas.  “How can you believe it?”

“Phoebicius found his sheepskin in his wife’s room,” replied Petrus gravely.  “And the impudent Alexandrian recognized it as his own before us all and allowed the Gaul to punish him.  He committed the disgraceful deed the very evening that you were sent off to gain intelligence.”

“And Phoebicius flogged him?” cried Hermas beside himself.  “And the poor fellow bore this disgrace and your blame, and all—­all for my sake.  Now I understand what he meant!  I met him after the battle and he told me that my father was dead.  When he parted from me, he said he was of all sinners the greatest, and that I should hear it said down in the oasis.  But I know better; he is great-hearted and good, and I will not bear that he should be disgraced and slandered for my sake.”  Hermas had sprung up with these words, and as he met the astonished gaze of his hosts, he tried to collect himself, and said: 

“Paulus never even saw Sirona, and I repeat it, if there is a man who may boast of being good and pure and quite without sin, it is he.  For me, and to save me from punishment and my father from sorrow, he owned a sin that he never committed.  Such a deed is just like him—­the brave—­ faithful friend!  But such shameful suspicion and disgrace shall not weigh upon him a moment longer!”

“You are speaking to an older man,” said Petrus angrily interrupting the youth’s vehement speech.  “Your friend acknowledged with his own lips—­”

“Then he told a lie out of pure goodness,” Hermas insisted.  “The sheepskin that the Gaul found was mine.  I had gone to Sirona, while her husband was sacrificing to Mithras, to fetch some wine for my father, and she allowed me to try on the centurion’s armor; when he unexpectedly returned I leaped out into the street and forgot that luckless sheepskin.  Paulus met me as I fled, and said he would set it all right, and sent me away—­to take my place and save my father a great trouble.