"For the present, at least, Constantine is the protector of the Christians.

I advise you to put your affair into the hands of Bishop Agapitus." "That he may serve me up a dish of your doctrine, which is bad even for women," said the centurion laughing; "and that I may kiss my enemies' feet?
They are a vile rabble up there, I repeat it, and they shall be treated as such till I have found my man.

I shall begin the hunt this very day." "And this very day you may end it, for the sheepskin is mine." It was Paulus who spoke these words in a loud and decided tone; all eyes were at once turned on him and on the centurion.
Petrus and the slaves had frequently seen the anchorite, but never without a sheepskin similar to that which Phoebicius held in his hand.
The anchorite's self-accusation must have appeared incredible, and indeed scarcely possible, to all who knew Paulus and Sirona; and nevertheless no one, not even the senator, doubted it for an instant.
Dame Dorothea only shook her head incredulously, and though she could find no explanation for the occurrence, she still could not but say to herself, that this man did not look like a lover, and that Sirona would hardly have forgotten her duty for his sake.

She could not indeed bring herself to believe in Sirona's guilt at all, for she was heartily well disposed towards her; besides--though it, no doubt, was not right--her motherly vanity inclined her to believe that if the handsome young woman had indeed sinned, she would have preferred her fine tall Polykarp--whose roses and flaming glances she blamed in all sincerity--to this shaggy, wild-looking graybeard.
Quite otherwise thought the centurion.

He was quite ready to believe in the anchorite's confession, for the more unworthy the man for whom Sirona had broken faith, the greater seemed her guilt, and the more unpardonable her levity; and to his man's vanity it seemed to him easier--particularly in the presence of such witnesses as Petrus and Dorothea--to bear the fact that his wife should have sought variety and pleasure at any cost, even at that of devoting herself to a ragged beggar, than that she should have given her affections to a younger, handsomer, and worthier man than himself.