And at a sign from Cyril, Peter the Reader stepped forward, and led away, gently enough, the two weepers, who were welcomed as they passed by the blessings, and prayers, and tears even of those fierce fanatics of Nitria. Nay, Peter himself, as he turned to leave them together in the sacristy, held out his hand to Philammon.
“I ask your forgiveness,” said the poor boy, who plunged eagerly and with a sort of delight into any and every self-abasement.
“And I accord it,” quoth Peter; and returned to the church, looking, and probably feeling, in a far more pleasant mood than usual.
XXVII
The Prodigal’s Return
About ten o’clock the next morning, as Hypatia, worn out with sleepless sorrow, was trying to arrange her thoughts for the farewell lecture, her favourite maid announced that a messenger from Synesius waited below. A letter from Synesius? A gleam of hope flashed across her mind. From him, surely, might come something of comfort, of advice. Ah! if he only knew how sorely she was bested!
“Let him send up his letter.”
“He refuses to deliver it to anyone but yourself. And I think,”—added the damsel, who had, to tell the truth, at that moment in her purse a substantial reason for so thinking—“I think it might be worth your ladyship’s while to see him.”
Hypatia shook her head impatiently.
“He seems to know you well, madam, though he refuses to tell his name: but he bade me put you in mind of a black agate—I cannot tell what he meant—of a black agate, and a spirit which was to appear when you rubbed it.”
Hypatia turned pale as death. Was it Philammon again? She felt for the talisman—it was gone! She must have lost it last night in Miriam’s chamber. Now she saw the true purpose of the old hag’s plot— … deceived, tricked, doubly tricked! And what new plot was this?
“Tell him to leave the letter, and begone. … My father? What? Who is this? Who are you bringing to me at such a moment?”
And as she spoke, Theon ushered into the chamber no other than Raphael Aben-Ezra, and then retired.
He advanced slowly towards her, and falling on one knee, placed in her hand Synesius’s letter.
Hypatia trembled from head to foot at the unexpected apparition. … Well; at least he could know nothing of last night and its disgrace. But not daring to look him in the face, she took the letter and opened it. … If she had hoped for comfort from it, her hope was not realised.
“Synesius to the Philosopher:
“Even if Fortune cannot take from me all things, yet what she can take she will. And yet of two things, at least, she shall not rob me—to prefer that which is best, and to succour the oppressed. Heaven forbid that she should overpower my judgment, as well as the rest of me! Therefore I do hate injustice; for that I can do: and my will is to stop it; but the power to do so is among the things of which she has bereaved me—before, too, she bereaved me of my children. …
“ ‘Once, in old times, Milesian men were strong.’
“And there was a time when I, too, was a comfort to my friends, and when you used to call me a blessing to everyone except myself, as I squandered for the benefit of others the favour with which the great regarded me. … My hands they were—then. … But now I am left desolate of all: unless you have any power. For you and virtue I count among those good things, of which none can deprive me. But you always have power, and will have it, surely, now—using it as nobly as you do.
“As for Nicaeus and Philolaus, two noble youths, and kinsmen of my own, let it be the business of all who honour you, both private men and magistrates, to see that they return possessors of their just rights.”5
“Of all who honour me!” said she, with a bitter sigh: and then looked up quickly at Raphael, as if fearful of having betrayed herself. She turned deadly pale. In his eyes was a look of solemn pity, which told her that he knew—not all?—surely not all?
“Have you seen the—Miriam?” gasped she, rushing desperately at that which she most dreaded.
“Not yet. I arrived but one hour ago; and Hypatia’s welfare is still more important to me than my own.”
“My welfare? It is gone!”
“So much the better. I never found mine till I lost it.”
“What do you mean?”
Raphael lingered, yet without withdrawing his gaze, as if he had something of importance to say, which he longed and yet feared to utter. At last—
“At least, you will confess that I am better drest than when we met last. I have returned, you see, like a certain demoniac of Gadara, about whom we used to argue, clothed—and perhaps also in my right mind. … God knows!”
“Raphael! are you come here to mock me? You know—you cannot have been here an hour without knowing—that but yesterday I dreamed of being”—and she drooped her eyes—“an empress; that today I am ruined; tomorrow, perhaps, proscribed. Have you no speech for me but your old sarcasms and ambiguities?”
Raphael stood silent and motionless.
“Why do you not speak? What is the meaning of this sad, earnest look, so different from your former self? … You have something strange to tell me!”
“I have,” said he, speaking very slowly. “What—what would Hypatia answer if, after all, Aben-Ezra said like the dying Julian, ‘The Galilean has conquered’?”
“Julian never said it! It is a monkish calumny.”
“But I say it.”
“Impossible!”
“I say it!”
“As your
