y grasp my hand.
He said I was his own, and yet I have never encouraged him. But now! if a
danger threatened him or a sorrow, and if by any means I could save him
from it, indeed--indeed--though I never could bear pain well, and am
afraid of death, I would let them nail me to a cross for him, as Thou
wast crucified for us all.

"But then he must know that I had died for him, and if he looked into my
dying eyes with his strange, deep gaze, I would tell him that it is to
him that I owe a love so great that it is a thing altogether different
and higher than any love I have ever before seen. And a feeling that is
so far above all measure of what ordinary mortals experience, it seems to
me, must be divine. Can such love be wrong? I know not; but Thou knowest,
and Thou, whom they name the Good Shepherd, lead Thou us--each apart from
the other, if it be best so for him--but yet, if it be possible, unite us
once more, if it be only for one single hour. If only he could know that
I am not wicked, and that poor Sirona would willingly belong to him, and
to no other, then I would be ready to die. O Thou good, kind Shepherd,
take me too into Thy flock, and guide me."

Thus prayed Sirona, and before her fancy there floated the image of a
lovely and loving youthful form; she had seen the original in the model
for Polykarp's noble work, and she had not forgotten the exquisite
details of the face. It seemed to her as well known and familiar as if
she had known--what in fact she could not even guess--that she herself
had had some share in the success of the work.

The love which unites two hearts is like the ocean of Homer which
encircles both halves of the earth. It flows and rolls on. Where shall we
seek its source--here or there--who can tell?

It was Dame Dorothea who in her motherly pride had led the Gaulish lady
into her son's workshop. Sirona thought of her and her husband and her
house, where over the door a motto was carved in the stone which she had
seen every morning from her sleeping-room. She could not read Greek, but
Polykarp's sister, Marthana, had more than once told her what it meant.
"Commit thy way to the Lord, and put thy trust in Him," ran the
inscription, and she repeated it to herself again and again, and then
drew fancy-pictures of the future in smiling day-dreams, which by degrees
assumed sharper outlines and brighter colors.

She saw herself united to Polykarp, and as the daughter of Petrus and
Dorothea, at