trace.  Because—­about the same time—­a band of Saracens had fallen on some Christian anchorites and travellers, in the district between Petra and Aila, your mother chose to assume a right to call our father a martyr!  But she knew his opinions full well, I tell you, and shed many a tear over them, too.—­Now she has expended vast sums on church-building, she has opened the Xenodochium and pours her money by lavish handfuls clown the insatiable throats of monks and priests.  To what end?  To have her husband recognized as a martyr.  Hitherto her toil and money have been wasted.  In my estimation the Bishop is a perfectly detestable tyrant, and if I know him at all he will take all she will give and never grant her wish.  Now she is preparing her great move, and hopes to startle him into compliance by a new marvel.  She thinks that, like a juggler who turns a white egg black, she can turn a heathen district into a Christian one by a twist of her finger.  Well—­so far as I am concerned I will have nothing to do with the trick.”

During this harangue Marcus had alternately gazed at the floor and fixed his large eyes in anguish on his brother’s face.  For some minutes he found nothing to reply, and he was evidently going through a bitter mental struggle.  Demetrius spoke no more, but arranged the sheets of papyrus that strewed the table.  At length Marcus, after a deep sigh, broke out in a tone of fervent conviction and with a blissful smile that lighted up his whole face: 

“Poor mother!  And others misunderstand her just as you do; I myself was in danger of doubting her.  But I think that now I understand her perfectly.  She loved my father so completely that she hopes now to win for his immortal soul the grace which he, in the flesh, neglected to strive after.  He was baptized, so she longs to win, by her prayers and oblations, the mercy of the Lord who is so ready to forgive.  She herself firmly believes in the martyrdom of her beloved dead, and if only the Church will rank him among those who have died for Her, he will be saved, and she will find him standing in the pure radiance of the realms above, with open arms, overflowing with fervent love and gratitude, to welcome the faithful helpmate who will have purged his soul.  Yes, now I quite understand; and from this day forth I will aid and second her; the hardest task shall not be too hard, the best shall not be too good, if only we may open the gates of Heaven to my poor father’s imperilled soul.”

As he spoke his eye glistened with ecstatic light; his brother, too, was touched, and to hide his emotion, he exclaimed, more recklessly and sharply than was his wont: 

“That will come all right, never fear, lad!” But he hastily wiped his eyes with his hand, slapped Marcus on the shoulder, and added gaily:  “It is better to choke than to swallow down the thing you think right, and it never hurt a man yet to make a clean breast of his feelings, even if we do not quite agree we understand each other the better for it.  I have my way of thinking, you have yours; thus we each know what the other means; but after the tragedy comes the satyr play, and we may as well finish this agitating evening with an hour’s friendly chat.”