He had cut himself adrift; he was on the great stream.

Whither would it lead him?
Well--was it not the great stream?
Had not all mankind, for all the ages, been floating on it?
Or was it but a desert-river, dwindling away beneath the fiery sun, destined to lose itself a few miles on, among the arid sands?
Were Arsenius and the faith of his childhood right?
And was the Old World coming speedily to its death-throe, and the Kingdom of God at hand?
Or was Cyril right, and the Church Catholic appointed to spread, and conquer, and destroy, and rebuild, till the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ! If so, what use in this old knowledge which he craved?
And yet, if the day of the destruction of all things were at hand, and the times destined to become worse and not better, till the end-how could that be ?....
'What news ?' asked the little porter, who had been waiting for him at the door all the while.

'What news, O favourite of the gods!' 'I will lodge with you, and labour with you.

Ask me no more at present.
I am--I am-- 'Those who descended into the Cave of Trophonius, and beheld the unspeakable, remained astonished for three days, my young friend--and so will you!' And they went forth together to earn their bread.
But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon that cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far above the noise and struggle of man and his work-day world?
She is sitting again, with her manuscripts open before her; but she is thinking of the young monk, not of them.
'Beautiful as Antinous!....

Rather as the young Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the slaughter of the Python.