ho gave you that ring?"

"It was a present from Phoebicius," replied she. "He said he had had it
given to him many years since in Antioch, and that it had been engraved
by a great artist. But I do not want it any more, and if you like to
have it you may."

"Throw it away!" exclaimed Paulus, "it will bring you nothing but
misfortune." Then he collected himself, went out into the air with his
head sunk on his breast, and there, throwing himself down on the wet
stones by the hearth, he cried out:

"Magdalen! dearest and purest! You, when you ceased to be Glycera,
became a saintly martyr, and found the road to heaven; I too had my day
of Damascus--of revelation and conversion--and I dared to call myself by
the name of Paulus--and now--now?"

Plunged in despair he beat his forehead, groaning out, "All, all in
vain!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

Common natures can only be lightly touched by the immeasurable depth of
anguish that is experienced by a soul that despairs of itself; but the
more heavily the blow of such suffering falls, the more surely does it
work with purifying power on him who has to taste of that cup.

Paulus thought no more of the fair, sleeping woman; tortured by acute
remorse he lay on the hard stones, feeling that he had striven in vain.
When he had taken Hermas' sin and punishment and disgrace upon himself,
it had seemed to him that he was treading in the very footsteps of the
Saviour. And now?--He felt like one who, while running for a prize,
stumbles over a stone and grovels in the sand when he is already close
to the goal.

"God sees the will and not the deed," he muttered to himself. "What I
did wrong with regard to Sirona--or what I did not do--that matters not.
When I leaned over her, I had fallen utterly and entirely into the power
of the evil one, and was an ally of the deadliest enemy of Him to whom
I had dedicated my life and soul. Of what avail was my flight from the
world, and my useless sojourn in the desert? He who always keeps out
of the way of the battle can easily boast of being unconquered to the
end-but is he therefore a hero? The palm belongs to him who in the midst
of the struggles and affairs of the world clings to the heavenward road,
and never lets himself be diverted from it; but as for me who walk here
alone, a woman and a boy cross my path, and one threatens and the other
beckons to me, and I forget my aim and stumble into the bog of iniquity.
And so I cannot find--no, here