It was I who sailed from the Bosphorus in that ship, with Julia
beside me; I from whom the Moorish pirates tore her, on the beach beside
Tetuan; I who, centuries after, drew those obscene figures on the wall
of your church--the devil, the nun, and the barred convent--when Julia,
another Julia but the same soul, was denied to me and forced into a
nunnery. For the frescoes, too, tell _my_ history. _I_ was that figure
in the dark habit, standing a little back from the cross. Tell me, sir,
did you never hear of Joseph Kartophilus, Pilate's porter?"

I saw that I must humour him. "I have heard his legend," said I;[1]
"and have understood that in time he became a Christian."

He smiled wearily. "He has travelled through many creeds; but he has
never travelled beyond Love. And if that love can be purified of all
passion such as you suspect, he has not travelled beyond forgiveness.
Many times I have known her who shall save me in the end; and now in the
end I have found her and shall be able, at length, to die; have found
her, and with her all my dead loves, in the body of a girl whom you call
half-witted--and shall be able, at length, to die."

And with this he bent over the table, and, resting his face on his arms,
sobbed aloud. I let him sob there for a while, and then touched his
shoulder gently.

He raised his head. "Ah," said he, in a voice which answered the
gentleness of my touch, "you remind me!" And with that he deliberately
slipped his coat off his left arm and, rolling up the shirt sleeve,
bared the arm almost to the shoulder. "I want you close," he added with
half a smile; for I have to confess that during the process I had backed
a couple of paces towards the door. He took up a candle, and held it
while I bent and examined the thin red line which ran like a circlet
around the flesh of the upper arm just below the apex of the deltoid
muscle. When I looked up I met his eyes challenging mine across the
flame.

"Mr. Laquedem," I said, "my conviction is that you are possessed and are
being misled by a grievous hallucination. At the same time I am not
fool enough to deny that the union of flesh and spirit, so passing
mysterious in everyday life (when we pause to think of it), may easily
hold mysteries deeper yet. The Church Catholic, whose servant I am, has
never to my knowledge denied this; yet has providentially made a rule of
St. Paul's advice to the Colossians against intruding into those things