d, a mason, had died an obdurate heathen and a bitter enemy of the
Christian Church. Then Dorothea, his widow, had devoted herself to saving
his soul; she left her children, abandoning them to the charity of the
congregation, and had withdrawn to a cloister to pray in silence and
unceasingly for the soul of her deceased husband. At first he used to
appear to her in her dreams, with furious gestures, accompanied by
centaurs and goat-footed creatures, and had desired her to go home to her
children and leave his soil in peace, for that he was in very good
quarters with the jolly devils; but soon after she had seen him again
with scorched limbs, and he lead implored her to pray fervently for mercy
on him, for that they were torturing him cruelly in hell.

Dorothea had then retired into the desert of Kolzoum where she was still
living in a cave, feeding on herbs, roots, and shell-fish thrown up on
the sea-shore. She had schooled herself to do without sleep, and prayed
day and night for her husband's soul; and she lead obtained strength
never to think of anything but her own and her husband's salvation, and
to forget her children completely. Her fervid devotion had at length met
with full reward; for some little time her husband had appeared to her in
a robe of shining light and often attended by lovely angels.

Agne had not lost a word of this narrative, and when, next morning, she
felt the cold hand of the dead youth and looked at his drawn and
pain-stricken features, she shuddered with vague terrors: he, she
thought, like Dorothea's husband, must have hell-torments to endure. When
she presently found herself alone with the corpse she bent over it and
kissed the pale lips, and swore to herself that she would save his soul.

That same evening she went back to Eusebius and told him of her wish to
withdraw to the desert of Koizoum and become a recluse. The old man
besought her to remain with him, to take charge of her little brother,
and not to abandon him and his old wife; for that it was a no less lovely
Christian duty to be compassionate and helpful, and cherish the feeble in
their old age. His wife added her entreaties and tears; but a sudden
chill had gripped Agne's heart; dry-eyed and rigid she resisted their
prayers, and took leave of her benefactors and of Papias. Bare-foot and
begging her way, she started for the south-east and reached the shores of
the Red Sea. There she found the stonemason's widow, emaciated and
h