He was seized with such violent terror that he stood as if spellbound, the goat slipped from his shoulders, and he felt as if his heart had ceased to beat.

And again the sweet woman's voice called, "Hermas, is it you?
What brings you to us at such a late hour ?" He stammered an incoherent answer, and "I do not understand; come a little nearer." Involuntarily he stepped forward into the shadow of the house and close up to her window.

She wore a white robe with wide, open sleeves, and her arms shone in the dim light as white as her garment.
The greyhound barked again; she quieted it, and then asked Hermas how his father was, and whether he needed some more wine.

He replied that she was very kind, angelically kind, but that the sick man was recovering fast, and that she had already given him far too much.
Neither of them said anything that might not have been heard by everybody, and yet they whispered as if they were speaking of some forbidden thing.
"Wait a moment," said Sirona, and she disappeared within the room, she soon reappeared, and said solid and sadly, "I would ask you to come into the house but Phoebicius has locked the door.

I am quite alone, hold the flask so that I may fill it through the open window." With these words she leaned over with the large jar--she was strong, but the wine-jar seemed to her heavier than on other occasions, and she said with a sigh, "The amphora is too heavy for me." He reached up to help her; again his fingers met hers, and again he felt the ecstatic thrill which had haunted his memory day and night ever since he first had felt it.