me. "But you know; I
saw it in your face when I named her." "The name I knew, nothing more;
and that I had heard but once, and my memory had let it escape." "Where
had you heard it? Who knows?" I said. "On Christmas Eve a man came, a
young man, fair-haired." "Christian," I said, "that was Christian." At
that three faces started into an eager cluster. "Christian!" they said,
"was his name Christian?" Then they told me that after night-fall he had
come and named Diadyomene, and that before daybreak a woman, naked and
very beautiful, had come wailing an only word, "Christian." But because
of the hour of his coming I said no, it could not be he, for I had seen
him too shortly before. And indeed it seemed to me past belief that any
man could have come that way by night so speedily. So they gave detail:
his hair was fair; his eyes grey; he was of great stature; he was
unclothed, bleeding freshly, and, yes, they thought, gashed along the
shoulder. "But here is a sure token," and with that they showed me that
cross he had worn. "This," they said, "he unloosed from his neck."'

Never a word more Lois heard of that tale, though for near a minute
Rhoda carried it forward. Then looking up, she saw a face like a mask,
with features strained and eyes fixed, and sprang up in terror, vainly to
strive at winning from the stricken senses token of the life they locked.

Was she guilty of this?

Never did she know. For the few days that sad life held on till it
reached its term never a word came: not one fiducial word through the
naming of Christian to exonerate Rhoda.

So Lois, too, had the comfort of death, and Rhoda only was left, through
long life to go unenlightened, and still to go dauntless of the dark.

EPILOGUE

Tell us how an altered estimate grew after the passing of Christian, to
end his reproach.

But his name came to be a byword of disgrace, his story a dark, grotesque
legend among records of infamy.

Tell us how Rhoda lived to be happy.

But the pain and shame of his stigma her heart could never lay aside,
though long years gave to patience and fortitude a likeness to serenity
and strength. Where Christian had lived would she still abide all her
days; and the poor reward of her constancy was in a tribute of silence
concerning him that came to respect her presence.

Tell us how Philip ripened to iniquity and was cut off.

But a tiny germ of compunction, lurking somewhere in that barren
conscience, quicken