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The law put the anchorite absolutely into the power of the outraged husband, but Phoebicius did not seem disposed to avail himself of his rights, and nothing but contempt and loathing were perceptible in his tone, as he said: "A man who takes hold of a mangy dog in order to punish him, only dirties his hand.
You might regard me with less hostility, for I will not offend you; nay, I will repay your evil words with good perhaps the very best indeed that you ever heard in your life. Sirona is a worthy and innocent woman, and at the time when Phoebicius came out to seek her, I had never even set eyes upon her nor had my ears ever heard a word pass her lips."
It was not a matter of indifference to him, that this man should think ill of him, and he said, with some embarrassment: "We do not usually go among people without a sheepskin, but I have lost mine." Hardly had he uttered the words, when Phoebicius came back with Hermas' sheepskin in his hand, and cried out to Petrus: "This I found on my return home, in our sleeping-room."
Then Phoebicius recollected that he had climbed the wall in the emperor's service, and stamping with impatience at himself he took the old man's hand in a hasty grasp. But scarcely had Stephanus felt the touch of the Gaul's fingers when he started as struck by lightning, and flung himself with a hoarse cry on his enemy who was hanging on the edge of the wall.
An hour ago Miriam had been listening under Sirona's room; after betraying her to Phoebicius she had followed him at a distance, and had slipped back into the court-yard through the stables; she felt that she must learn what was happening within, and what fate had befallen Hermas and Sirona at the hands of the infuriated Gaul.
He was Phoebicius again and not another, that he knew now, and yet he could not completely bring himself to comprehend the situation.
So, when the Centurion Phoebicius, the commandant of the garrison of her native town, was transferred to Rome, and when he desired to take the seventeen-years-old girl with him to the imperial city, as his wife she was more than forty years younger than he she followed him full of hope and eager anticipation.
"And yet the boy gazes at her," said Petrus, "and Phoebicius has noticed it; he met me yesterday when I came home, and, in his sour, polite manner, requested me to advise my son, when he wished to offer a rose, not to throw it into his window, as he was not fond of flowers, and preferred to gather them himself for his wife."
Petrus heaved a sigh of relief, for he had not till now been perfectly convinced of his son's innocence; but, far from triumphing or making Phoebicius feel the injustice he had done him, he said kindly for he felt some sympathy with the Gaul in his misfortune: "I wish the messenger could also give some news of your wife's retreat; she found it hard to accommodate herself to the dull life here in the oasis, perhaps she has only disappeared in order to seek a town which may offer more variety to such a beautiful young creature than this quiet spot in the desert."
He understood nothing of all the words which she tried to say for her voice, which only yesterday had been so sweet, to-day was inaudibly hoarse except the one name "Phoebicius," and he felt no doubt that she clung to the stone over the abyss, so that, like the mountain-goat when it sees itself surprised by the hunter, she might fling herself into the depth below rather than be taken by her pursuer.
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