oose, he bowed his head, however, to that God by
him uncomprehended, and paid silent honor for this sole reason, that He
was Lygia's God.

Lygia saw what was happening in him; she saw how he was breaking
himself, how his nature was rejecting that religion; and though this
mortified her to the death, compassion, pity, and gratitude for the
silent respect which he showed Christ inclined her heart to him with
irresistible force. She recalled Pomponia Graecina and Aulus. For
Pomponia a source of ceaseless sorrow and tears that never dried was the
thought that beyond the grave she would not find Aulus. Lygia began now
to understand better that pain, that bitterness. She too had found a
being dear to her, and she was threatened by eternal separation from
this dear one.

At times, it is true, she was self-deceived, thinking that his soul
would open itself to Christ's teaching; but these illusions could
not remain. She knew and understood him too well. Vinicius a
Christian!--These two ideas could find no place together in her
unenlightened head. If the thoughtful, discreet Aulus had not become
a Christian under the influence of the wise and perfect Pomponia, how
could Vinicius become one? To this there was no answer, or rather there
was only one,--that for him there was neither hope nor salvation.

But Lygia saw with terror that that sentence of condemnation which hung
over him instead of making him repulsive made him still dearer simply
through compassion. At moments the wish seized her to speak to him of
his dark future; but once, when she had sat near him and told him that
outside Christian truth there was no life, he, having grown stronger
at that time, rose on his sound arm and placed his head on her knees
suddenly. "Thou art life!" said he. And that moment breath failed in her
breast, presence of mind left her, a certain quiver of ecstasy rushed
over her from head to feet. Seizing his temples with her hands, she
tried to raise him, but bent the while so that her lips touched his
hair; and for a moment both were overcome with delight, with themselves,
and with love, which urged them the one to the other.

Lygia rose at last and rushed away, with a flame in her veins and a
giddiness in her head; but that was the drop which overflowed the cup
filled already to the brim. Vinicius did not divine how dearly he would
have to pay for that happy moment, but Lygia understood that now she
herself needed rescue. She spent the nig