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.

Here all was, by this time, dark and still; only a few lamps lighted the pillared space and the flare of a torch fell upon the benches placed there for the accommodation of priests, laymen and supplicants generally.

Utterly worn out—­whether by terror or disappointment or by hunger and fatigue she scarcely knew—­she sank on a seat and buried her face in her hands.

During her absence the wounded had been conveyed to the sick-houses; one only was left whom they had not been able to move.  He was lying on a mattress between two of the columns at some little distance from Agne, and the light of a lamp, standing on a medicine-chest, fell on his handsome but bloodless features.  A deaconess was kneeling at his head and gazed in silence in the face of the dead, while old Eusebius crouched prostrate by his side, resting his cheek on the breast of the man whose eyes were sealed in eternal sleep.  Two sounds only broke the profound silence of the deserted hall:  an occasional faint sob from the old man and the steady step of the soldiers on guard in front of the Bishop’s palace.  The widow, kneeling with clasped hands, never took her eyes off the face of the youth, nor moved for fear of disturbing the deacon who, as she knew, was praying—­praying for the salvation of the heathen soul snatched away before it could repent.  Many minutes passed before the old man rose, dried his moist eyes, pressed his lips to the cold hand of the dead and said sadly: