“To that of John the Baptist?”

“Where Damascius was the preacher?”

“Yes, holy Father.  He was the shepherd of our souls.”

“What!  Damascius the Arian?” cried the Bishop.  He drew his fine and stately figure up to its most commanding height and closed his thin lips in august contempt, while Irenaeus, clasping his hands in horror, asked her: 

“And you—­do you, too, confess the heresy of Arius?”

“My parents were Arians,” replied Agne in much surprise.  “They taught me to worship the godlike Saviour.”

“Enough!” exclaimed the Bishop severely.  “Come Irenaeus.”

He nodded to the priest to follow him, opened the curtain and went in first with supreme dignity.

Agne stood as if a thunderbolt had fallen, pale, trembling and desperate.  Then was she not a Christian?  Was it a sin in a child to accept the creed of her parents?  And were those who, after charitably extending a saving hand, had so promptly withdrawn it—­were they Christians in the full meaning of the All-merciful Redeemer?

Agonizing doubts of everything that she had hitherto deemed sacred and inviolable fell upon her soul; doubts of everything in heaven and earth, and not merely of Christ and of his godlike, or divine goodness—­for what difference was there to her apprehension in the meaning of the two words which set man to hunt and persecute man?  In the distress and hopeless dilemma in which she found herself, she shed no tears; she simply stood rooted to the spot where she had heard the Bishop’s verdict.

Presently her attention was roused by the shrill voice of an old writer who called out to one of the younger assistants.

“That girl disturbs me, Petubastis; show her out.”  Petubastis, a pretty Egyptian lad, was more than glad of an interruption to his work which somehow seemed endless to-day; he put aside his implements, stroked back the black hair that had fallen over his face, and removing the reed-pen from behind his ear, stuck in a sprig of dark blue larkspur.  Then he tripped to the door, opened it, looked at the girl with the cool impudence of a connoisseur in beauty, bowed slightly, and pointing the way out said with airified politeness: 

“Allow me!”

Agne at once obeyed and with a drooping head left the room; but the young Egyptian stole out after her, and as soon as the door was shut he seized her hand and said in a whisper:  “If you can wait half an hour at the bottom of the stairs, pretty one, I will take you somewhere where you will enjoy yourself.”

She had stopped to listen, and looked enquiringly into his face, for she had no suspicion of his meaning; the young fellow, encouraged by this, laid his hand on her shoulder and would have drawn her towards him but that she, thrusting him from her as if he were some horrible animal, flew down the steps as fast as her feet could carry her, and through the courtyard back into the great entrance-hall.