e.
Paulus fell breathless on his knees, and fixed his eyes with growing
eagerness on the graceful form of the sleeper.

Sirona was dreaming; her head, veiled in her golden hair, rested on a
high pillow of herbs, and her delicately rosy face was turned up to the
vault of the cave; her half-closed lips moved gently, and now she moved
her bent arm and her white hand, on which the light of the lamp fell,
and which rested half on her forehead and half on her shining hair.

"Is she saying anything?" asked Paulus of himself, and he pressed his
brow against a projection of the rock as tightly as if he would stem
the rapid rush of his blood that it might not overwhelm his bewildered
brain.

Again she moved her lips. Had she indeed spoken? Had she perhaps called
him?

That could not be, for she still slept; but he wished to believe it--and
he would believe it, and he stole nearer to her and nearer, and bent
over her, and listened--while his own strength failed him even to draw a
breath--listened to the soft regular breathing that heaved her bosom. No
longer master of himself he touched her white arm with his bearded lips
and she drew it back in her sleep, then his gaze fell on her parted lips
and the pearly teeth that shone between them, and a mad longing to kiss
them came irresistibly over him. He bent trembling over her, and was
on the point of gratifying his impulse when, as if startled by a sudden
apparition, he drew back, and raised his eyes from the rosy lips to the
hand that rested on the sleeper's brow.

The lamplight played on a golden ring on Sirona's finger, and shone
brightly on an onyx on which was engraved an image of Tyche, the
tutelary goddess of Antioch, with a sphere upon her head, and bearing
Amalthea's horn in her hand.

A new and strange emotion took possession of the anchorite at the sight
of this stone. With trembling hands he felt in the breast of his torn
garment, and presently drew forth a small iron crucifix and the ring
that he had taken from the cold hand of Hermas' mother. In the golden
circlet was set an onyx, on which precisely the same device was visible
as that on Sirona's hand. The string with its precious jewel fell from
his grasp, he clutched his matted hair with both hands, groaned deeply,
and repeated again and again, as though to crave forgiveness, the name
of "Magdalen."

Then he called Sirona in a loud voice, and as she awoke excessively
startled, he asked her in urgent tones: "W