elf?'

He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied with shame and
despair....

She believed him guilty, then!.... It was the will of God!

The plumes of the horses were waving far down the street before he
recovered himself, and rushed after her, shouting he knew not what.

It was too late! A dark wave of men rushed from the ambuscade, surged
up round the car.... swept forward.... she had disappeared! and as
Philammon followed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly
homeward with the empty carriage.

Whither were they dragging her? To the Caesareum, the Church of God
Himself? Impossible! Why thither of all places of the earth? Why did the
mob, increasing momentarily by hundreds, pour down upon the beach, and
return brandishing flints, shells, fragments of pottery?

She was upon the church steps before he caught them up, invisible among
the crowd; but he could track her by the fragments of her dress.

Where were her gay pupils now? Alas! they had barricaded themselves
shamefully in the Museum, at the first rush which swept her from the
door of the lecture-room. Cowards! he would save her!

And he struggled in vain to pierce the dense mass of Parabolani and
monks, who, mingled with the fishwives and dock-workers, leaped and
yelled around their victim. But what he could not do another and a
weaker did--even the little porter. Furiously--no one knew how or
whence--he burst up as if from the ground in the thickest of the crowd,
with knife, teeth, and nails, like a venomous wild-cat, tearing his way
towards his idol. Alas! he was torn down himself, rolled over the steps,
and lay there half dead in an agony of weeping, as Philammon sprang up
past him into the church.

Yes. On into the church itself! Into the cool dim shadow, with its
fretted pillars, and lowering domes, and candles, and incense, and
blazing altar, and great pictures looking from the walls athwart the
gorgeous gloom. And right in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ
watching unmoved from off the wall, His right hand raised to give a
blessing--or a curse?

On, up the nave, fresh shreds of her dress strewing the holy
pavement--up the chancel steps themselves--up to the altar--right
underneath the great still Christ: and there even those hell-hounds
paused.

She shook herself free from her tormentors, and springing back, rose for
one moment to her full height, naked, snow-white against the dusky mass
around--shame and indignation in