ch made me wish for the moment that I had bitten out this
impudent tongue of mine, before I so rashly touched some deep old
wound.... That man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of it.... But
he turned the conversation instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as he
is, by saying, with the sweetest smile, that though he had made it a
solemn rule never to be a party to making up any marriage, yet in our
case Heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, etc. etc.,
that he could not refuse himself the pleasure.... and ended by a
blessing as kindly as ever came from the lips of man.'

'You seem wonderfully taken with the sophist of Hippo,' said Hypatia
impatiently; 'and forget, perhaps, that his opinions, especially when,
as you confess, they are utterly inconsistent with themselves, are not
quite as important to me as they seem to have become to you.'

'Whether he be consistent or not about marriage,' said Raphael, somewhat
proudly, 'I care little. I went to him to tell me, not about the
relation of the sexes, on which point I am probably as good a judge as
he--but about God and on that subject he told me enough to bring me back
to Alexandria, that I might undo, if possible, somewhat of the wrong
which I have done to Hypatia.'

'What wrong have you done me?.... You are silent? Be sure, at least,
that whatsoever it may be, you will not wipe it out by trying to make a
proselyte of me!'

'Be not too sure of that. I have found too great a treasure not to wish
to share it with Theon's daughter.'

'A treasure?' said she, half scornfully.

'Yes, indeed. You recollect my last words, when we parted there below a
few months ago?'

Hypatia was silent. One terrible possibility at which he had hinted
flashed across her memory for the first time since;.... but she spurned
proudly from her the heaven-sent warning.

'I told you that, like Diogenes, I went forth to seek a man. Did I not
promise you, that when I had found one you should be the first to hear
of him? And I have found a man.'

Hypatia waved her beautiful hand. 'I know whom you would say.... that
crucified one. Be it so. I want not a man, but a god.'

'What sort of a god, Hypatia? A god made up of our own intellectual
notions, or rather of negations of them--of infinity and eternity,
and invisibility, and impassibility--and why not of immortality, too,
Hypatia? For I recollect we used to agree that it was a carnal degrading
of the Supreme One to predicate of