edit among the Christians. We may have to get her safe out of the
town. I must escort you and Agatha, for nothing unpleasant must happen
to her on the way home. The master is imperative on that point, and so
much beauty will certainly not get through the crowded streets without
remark. And for my part, I, of course, am thinking of yours."

Here Castor laughed aloud, and rolled the white robe into a bundle.
Alexander peeped out of his nook and shook his head in amazement, for
the supple youth, who a moment before stood stalwart and upright, had
assumed, with a bent attitude and a long, white beard hastily placed on
his chin, the aspect of a weary, poor old man.

"I will give you a lesson!" muttered Alexander to himself, and he shook
his fist at the intriguing rascal as he vanished into the house with the
false deaconess.

So Serapion was a cheat! And the supposed ghost of Korinna was a
Christian maiden who was being shamefully deluded. But he would keep
watch over her, and bring that laughing villain to account. The first
aim of his life was not to lose sight of Agatha. His whole happiness,
he felt, depended on that. The gods had, as it were, raised her from the
dead for him; in her, everything that he most admired was united; she
was the embodiment of everything he cared for and prized; every feeling
sank into the shade beside the one desire to make her his. She was,
at this moment, the universe to him; and all else--the pursuers at his
heels, his father, his sister, pretty Ino, to whom he had vowed his love
only the night before--had ceased to exist for him.

Possessed wholly by the thought of her, he never took his eyes off the
door opposite; and when at last the maiden came out with the deaconess,
whom she called Elizabeth, and with Castor, Alexander followed the
ill-matched trio; and he had to be brisk, for at first they hurried
through the streets as though they feared to be overtaken. He carefully
kept close to the houses on the shady side, and when they presently
stopped, so did he.

The deaconess inquired of Agatha whither she would be taken. But when
the girl replied that she must go back to her own boat, waiting at
the ferry, and return home, the deaconess represented that this was
impossible by reason of the drunken seamen, who at this hour made the
strand unsafe; she could only advise Agatha to come home with her and
remain till daybreak. "This kind old man," and she pointed to Castor,
"would no doubt g