oe!"

"And can the daughter of Porphyrius say this?" exclaimed the leech.

"Yes, Apuleius, yes. After what I have seen, and heard, and endured this
night, I cannot speak otherwise. It was shameful, horrible, sickening; I
could rage at the mere thought of being supposed to be one of that
debased crew. It is disgrace and ignominy even to be named in the same
breath! A god who is served as this god has been is no god of mine! And
you--you are learned--a sage and a philosopher--how can you believe that
the God of the Christians when he has conquered and crippled yours, will
ever permit Serapis to destroy His world and the men He created?"

Apuleius drew himself up. "Are you then a Christian?" he asked swiftly
and sternly.

But Gorgo could not reply; she colored deeply and Apuleius vehemently
repeated his question: "Then you really are a Christian?"

She looked frankly in his face: "No," she said, "I am not; but I wish I
were."

The physician turned away with a shrug; but Gorgo drew a breath of
relief, feeling that her avowal had lifted a heavy burthen from her soul.
She hardly knew how the bold and momentous confession had got itself
spoken, but she felt that it was the only veracious answer to the
physician's question.

They spoke no more; she was better pleased to remain silent, for her own
utterance had opened out to her a new land of promise--of feeling and of
thought.

Her lover henceforth was no longer her enemy; and as the tumult of the
struggle by the breach fell on her ear, she could think with joy of his
victorious arms. She felt that this was the purer, the nobler, the better
cause; and she rejoiced in the love of which he had spoken as the support
and the stay of their future life together--as sheltering them like a
tower of strength and a mighty refuge. Compared with that love all that
she had hitherto held dear or indispensable as gracing life, now seemed
vain and worthless; and as she looked at her father's still face, and
remembered how he had lived and what he had suffered, she applied those
words of Paul which Constantine had spoken at their meeting after his
return, to him, too; and her heart overflowed with affection towards her
hapless parent. She knew full well the meaning of the deep lines that
marked his lips and brow; for Porphyrius had never made any secret of his
distress and vexation whenever he found himself compelled to confess a
creed in which he did not honestly believe. This great f