threw the light upon her
face--how stupid she looked with her mouth open! An alabaster lamp shed
a dim light in the bed-room, softly and still smiling he went up to
Glycera's ivory couch, and held up his lamp, and stared at the empty and
undisturbed bed--and the smile faded from his lips. The smile of that
evening came back to him no more through all the long years, for Glycera
had betrayed him, and left him--him and her child. All this had happened
twenty years since, and to-day all that he had then felt had returned to
him, and he saw his wife's empty couch with his "mind's eye," as plainly
as he had then seen it, and he felt as lonely and as miserable as in
that night. But now a shadow appeared before the opening of the cave,
and he breathed a deep sigh as he felt himself released from the hideous
vision, for he had recognized Paulus, who came up and knelt down beside
him.

"Water, water!" Stephanus implored in a low voice, and Paulus, who was
cut to the heart by the moaning of the old man, which he had not heard
till he entered the cave, seized the pitcher. He looked into it, and,
finding it quite dry, he rushed down to the spring as if he were running
for a wager, filled it to the brim and brought it to the lips of the
sick man, who gulped the grateful drink down with deep draughts, and at
last exclaimed with a sigh of relief; "That is better; why were you so
long away? I was so thirsty!" Paulus who had fallen again on his knees
by the old man, pressed his brow against the couch, and made no reply.
Stephanus gazed in astonishment at his companion, but perceiving that
he was weeping passionately he asked no further questions. Perfect
stillness reigned in the cave for about an hour; at last Paulus raised
his face, and said, "Forgive me Stephanus. I forgot your necessity
in prayer and scourging, in order to recover the peace of mind I had
trifled away--no heathen would have done such a thing!" The sick man
stroked his friend's arm affectionately; but Paulus murmured, "Egoism,
miserable egoism guides and governs us. Which of us ever thinks of the
needs of others? And we--we who profess to walk in the way of the Lamb!"

He sighed deeply, and leaned his head on the sick man's breast, who
lovingly stroked his rough hair, and it was thus that the senator found
him, when he entered the cave with Hermas.

The idle way of life of the anchorites was wholly repulsive to his views
of the task for men and for Christians, but h