haps--but just
now you mentioned the name of Paulus, who was so dear to you and
your father. Do you know that it was he who so shamelessly ruined the
domestic peace of the centurion?"

"Paulus!" cried Hermas. "How can you believe it?"

"Phoebicius found his sheepskin in his wife's room," replied Petrus
gravely. "And the impudent Alexandrian recognized it as his own before
us all and allowed the Gaul to punish him. He committed the disgraceful
deed the very evening that you were sent off to gain intelligence."

"And Phoebicius flogged him?" cried Hermas beside himself. "And the poor
fellow bore this disgrace and your blame, and all--all for my sake. Now
I understand what he meant! I met him after the battle and he told me
that my father was dead. When he parted from me, he said he was of all
sinners the greatest, and that I should hear it said down in the oasis.
But I know better; he is great-hearted and good, and I will not bear
that he should be disgraced and slandered for my sake." Hermas had
sprung up with these words, and as he met the astonished gaze of his
hosts, he tried to collect himself, and said:

"Paulus never even saw Sirona, and I repeat it, if there is a man who
may boast of being good and pure and quite without sin, it is he. For
me, and to save me from punishment and my father from sorrow, he owned
a sin that he never committed. Such a deed is just like him--the
brave--faithful friend! But such shameful suspicion and disgrace shall
not weigh upon him a moment longer!"

"You are speaking to an older man," said Petrus angrily interrupting the
youth's vehement speech. "Your friend acknowledged with his own lips--"

"Then he told a lie out of pure goodness," Hermas insisted. "The
sheepskin that the Gaul found was mine. I had gone to Sirona, while her
husband was sacrificing to Mithras, to fetch some wine for my father,
and she allowed me to try on the centurion's armor; when he unexpectedly
returned I leaped out into the street and forgot that luckless
sheepskin. Paulus met me as I fled, and said he would set it all right,
and sent me away--to take my place and save my father a great trouble.
Look at me as severely as you will, Dorothea, but it was only in
thoughtless folly that I slipped into the Gaul's house that evening,
and by the memory of my father--of whom heaven has this day bereft me--I
swear that Sirona only amused herself with me as with a boy, a child,
and even refused to let me kiss her b