he had equally falsely confessed
himself the partner of her misdeed, he felt an anxiety that amounted to
anguish, and a leaden oppression checked the rapidity of his thoughts. He
at first stammered out a few unintelligible words, but his opponent was
in fearful earnest with his question; he seized the collar of the
anchorite's coarse garment with terrible violence, and cried in a husky
voice, "Where did you find the dog? Where is--?"

But suddenly he left go his hold of the Alexandrian, looked at him from
head to foot, and said softly and slowly:

"Can it be possible? Are you Paulus, the Alexandrian?"

The anchorite nodded assent. Polykarp laughed loud and bitterly, pressed
his hand to his forehead, and exclaimed in a tone of the deepest disgust
and contempt:

"And is it so, indeed! and such a repulsive ape too! But I will not
believe that she even held out a hand to you, for the mere sight of you
makes me dirty." Paulus felt his heart beating like a hammer within his
breast; and there was a singing and roaring in his ears. When once more
Polykarp threatened him with his fist he involuntarily took the posture
of an athlete in a wrestling match, he stretched out his arms to try to
get a good hold of his adversary, and said in a hollow, deep tone of
angry warning, "Stand back, or something will happen to you that will not
be good for your bones."

The speaker was indeed Paulus--and yet--not Paulus; it was Menander, the
pride of the Palaestra, who had never let pass a word of his comrades
that did not altogether please him. And yet yesterday in the oasis he had
quietly submitted to far worse insults than Polykarp had offered him, and
had accepted them with contented cheerfulness. Whence then to-day this
wild sensitiveness and eager desire to fight?

When, two days since, he had gone to his old cave to fetch the last of
his hidden gold pieces, he had wished to greet old Stephanus, but the
Egyptian attendant had scared him off like an evil spirit with angry
curses, and had thrown stones after him. In the oasis he had attempted to
enter the church in spite of the bishop's prohibition, there to put up a
prayer; for he thought that the antechamber, where the spring was and in
which penitents were wont to tarry, would certainly not be closed even to
him; but the acolytes had driven him away with abusive words, and the
door-keeper, who a short time since had trusted him with the key, spit in
his face, and yet he had not fo