He was the shepherd of our souls." "What! Damascius the Arian ?" cried the Bishop.

He drew his fine and stately figure up to its most commanding height and closed his thin lips in august contempt, while Irenaeus, clasping his hands in horror, asked her: "And you--do you, too, confess the heresy of Arius ?" "My parents were Arians," replied Agne in much surprise.

"They taught me to worship the godlike Saviour." "Enough!" exclaimed the Bishop severely.

"Come Irenaeus." He nodded to the priest to follow him, opened the curtain and went in first with supreme dignity.
Agne stood as if a thunderbolt had fallen, pale, trembling and desperate.

Then was she not a Christian?
Was it a sin in a child to accept the creed of her parents?
And were those who, after charitably extending a saving hand, had so promptly withdrawn it--were they Christians in the full meaning of the All-merciful Redeemer?
Agonizing doubts of everything that she had hitherto deemed sacred and inviolable fell upon her soul; doubts of everything in heaven and earth, and not merely of Christ and of his godlike, or divine goodness--for what difference was there to her apprehension in the meaning of the two words which set man to hunt and persecute man?
In the distress and hopeless dilemma in which she found herself, she shed no tears; she simply stood rooted to the spot where she had heard the Bishop's verdict.
Presently her attention was roused by the shrill voice of an old writer who called out to one of the younger assistants.
"That girl disturbs me, Petubastis; show her out." Petubastis, a pretty Egyptian lad, was more than glad of an interruption to his work which somehow seemed endless to-day; he put aside his implements, stroked back the black hair that had fallen over his face, and removing the reed-pen from behind his ear, stuck in a sprig of dark blue larkspur.