e mercy of
the Saviour. Now she is a blessed angel."

"Are you sure of that?"

"As sure as I live in hope of meeting the martyr who rests here, again
in Heaven!"

"Mary."

"Leave go of my hand!"

"Will you do me a service, Mary?"

"Willingly, Antinous--but pray do not touch me."

"Take this money and buy the loveliest wreath that is to be had here.
Hang it on this tomb, and say as you do so--call out--, From Antinous to
Selene.'"

The deformed girl took the money he gave her and said:

"She often prayed for you."

"To her God?"

"To our Redeemer, that he might give you also joy. She died for Christ
Jesus; now she is with him, and he will grant her prayers."

Antinous was silent for a while, then he said:

"Once more give me your hand, Mary, and now farewell. Will you sometimes
think of me, and pray for me too, to your Redeemer?"

"Yes, yes, and you will not quite forget me, the poor cripple?"

"Certainly not, you good, kind girl! Perhaps we may some day meet
again." With these words Antinous hurried down the hill and through the
town to the Nile.

The moon had risen and was mirrored in the rough water. Just so had its
image played upon the waves when Antinous had rescued Selene from the
sea. The lad knew that Hadrian would be expecting him, still he did
not seek his tent. A violent emotion had overpowered him; he restlessly
paced up and down the river-bank rapidly reviewing in his memory the
more prominent incidents of his past life. He seemed to hear again every
word of the dialogue that had taken place yesterday between Hadrian
and himself. Before his inward eye he saw once more his humble home in
Bithynia, his mother, his brothers and sisters whom he should never see
again. Once more he lived through the dreadful hour when he had deceived
his beloved master and had been an incendiary. An overmastering dread
fell upon him as he thought of Hadrian's wish to put him in the place of
the man whom the prudent sovereign had chosen as his successor--a choice
that was perhaps the direct outcome of his own crime. He, Antinous, who
to-day could not think of the morrow, who always kept out of the way of
the discourse of grave men because he found it so hard to follow their
meaning, he who knew nothing but how to obey, he who was never happy
but alone with his master and his dreaming, far from the bustle of
the world--he, to be burdened with the purple, with anxiety, with a
mountain-load of responsibility!