is litter.

On seeing his uncle, though greeted with gladness, he replied to his
questions unwillingly; but his feelings and thoughts, repressed for a
long time, burst forth at last, and flowed from his mouth in a torrent
of words. Once more he told in detail the history of his search for
Lygia, his life among the Christians, everything which he had heard and
seen there, everything which had passed through his head and heart; and
finally he complained that he had fallen into a chaos, in which were
lost composure and the gift of distinguishing and judging. Nothing, he
said, attracted him, nothing was pleasing; he did not know what to hold
to, nor how to act. He was ready both to honor and persecute Christ;
he understood the loftiness of His teaching, but he felt also an
irresistible repugnance to it. He understood that, even should he
possess Lygia, he would not possess her completely, for he would have to
share her with Christ. Finally, he was living as if not living,--without
hope, without a morrow, without belief in happiness; around him was
darkness in which he was groping for an exit, and could not find it.

Petronius, during this narrative, looked at his changed face, at his
hands, which while speaking he stretched forth in a strange manner, as
if actually seeking a road in the darkness, and he fell to thinking. All
at once he rose, and, approaching Vinicius, caught with his fingers the
hair above his ear.

"Dost know," asked he, "that thou hast gray hairs on thy temple?"

"Perhaps I have," answered Vinicius; "I should not be astonished were
all my hair to grow white soon."

Silence followed. Petronius was a man of sense, and more than once
he meditated on the soul of man and on life. In general, life, in the
society in which they both lived, might be happy or unhappy externally,
but internally it was at rest. Just as a thunderbolt or an earthquake
might overturn a temple, so might misfortune crush a life. In itself,
however, it was composed of simple and harmonious lines, free of
complication. But there was something else in the words of Vinicius, and
Petronius stood for the first time before a series of spiritual snarls
which no one had straightened out hitherto. He was sufficiently a man of
reason to feel their importance, but with all his quickness he could
not answer the questions put to him. After a long silence, he said at
last,--

"These must be enchantments."

"I too have thought so," answered Vini