"

The stranger laid the long, cool, wet leaf softly across the young man's
eyes. An icicle of pain darted through them; every nerve in his body was
drawn together there in a knot of agony.

Then all the tangle of pain seemed to be lifted out of him. A cool
languor of delight flowed back through every vein, and he sank into a
profound sleep.

III

There is a slumber so deep that it annihilates time. It is like a
fragment of eternity. Beneath its enchantment of vacancy, a day seems
like a thousand years, and a thousand years might well pass as one day.

It was such a sleep that fell upon Hermas in the Grove of Daphne. An
immeasurable period, an interval of life so blank and empty that he
could not tell whether it was long or short, had passed over him when
his senses began to stir again. The setting sun was shooting arrows of
gold under the glossy laurel-leaves. He rose and stretched his arms,
grasping a smooth branch above him and shaking it, to make sure that he
was alive. Then he hurried back toward Antioch, treading lightly as if
on air.

The ground seemed to spring beneath his feet. Already his life had
changed, he knew not how. Something that did not belong to him had
dropped away; he had returned to a former state of being. He felt as if
anything might happen to him, and he was ready for anything. He was
a new man, yet curiously familiar to himself--as if he had done with
playing a tiresome part and returned to his natural state. He was
buoyant and free, without a care, a doubt, a fear.

As he drew near to his father's house he saw a confusion of servants in
the porch, and the old steward ran down to meet him at the gate.

"Lord, we have been seeking you everywhere. The master is at the point
of death, and has sent for you. Since the sixth hour he calls your name
continually. Come to him quickly, lord, for I fear the time is short."

Hermas entered the house at once; nothing could amaze him to-day. His
father lay on an ivory couch in the inmost chamber, with shrunken face
and restless eyes, his lean fingers picking incessantly at the silken
coverlet.

"My son!" he murmured; "Hermas, my son! It is good that you have come
back to me. I have missed you. I was wrong to send you away. You
shall never leave me again. You are my son, my heir. I have changed
everything. Hermas, my son, come nearer--close beside me. Take my hand,
my son!"

The young man obeyed, and, kneeling by the couch, gathered his fathe