fear, for two or three days, that he might be
lost. Some of his more intimate companions maintained that his devotion
had led him out into the desert to join the anchorites. But the news of
his return to the House of the Golden Pillars, and of his new life as
its master, filtered quickly through the gossip of the city.

Then the church was filled with dismay and grief and reproach.
Messengers and letters were sent to Hermas. They disturbed him a little,
but they took no hold upon him. It seemed to him as if the messengers
spoke in a strange language. As he read the letters there were words
blotted out of the writing which made the full sense unintelligible.

His old companions came to reprove him for leaving them, to warn him of
the peril of apostasy, to entreat him to return. It all sounded vague
and futile. They spoke as if he had betrayed or offended some one;
but when they came to name the object of his fear--the one whom he had
displeased, and to whom he should return--he heard nothing; there was a
blur of silence in their speech. The clock pointed to the hour, but the
bell did not strike. At last Hermas refused to see them any more.

One day John the Presbyter stood in the atrium. Hermas was entertaining
Libanius and Athenais in the banquet-hall. When the visit of the
Presbyter was announced, the young master loosed a collar of gold and
jewels from his neck, and gave it to his scribe.

"Take this to John of Antioch, and tell him it is a gift from his former
pupil--as a token of remembrance, or to spend for the poor of the city.
I will always send him what he wants, but it is idle for us to talk
together any more. I do not understand what he says. I have not gone
to the temple, nor offered sacrifice, nor denied his teaching. I have
simply forgotten. I do not think about those things any longer. I am
only living. A happy man wishes him all happiness and farewell."

But John let the golden collar fall on the marble floor. "Tell your
master that we shall talk together again, in due time," said he, as he
passed sadly out of the hall.

The love of Athenais and Hermas was like a tiny rivulet that sinks out
of sight in a cavern, but emerges again a bright and brimming stream.
The careless comradery of childhood was mysteriously changed into a
complete companionship.

When Athenais entered the House of the Golden Pillars as a bride, all
the music of life came with her. Hermas called the feast of her welcome
"the ban