He was glad he had thought of this; it would divert her from a discourse momently growing unpleasant for him.
And yet he was afraid of the thing he had said.
"What dost thou say ?" she asked.
"He is come and gone--they say." "Come and gone!" He nodded irritably.

It made him nervous to dwell on the subject.
"Who say ?" she demanded.
"Many! Many!" he whispered.
"It is not--do you believe it ?" she persisted, with strange terror waiting upon his answer.

He moved uneasily but he answered the truth.
It was superstition in him that spoke.
"Something in me says it is true," Philadelphus whispered.
She stood transfixed; then all her horror rose in her and cried out against the story.
"It can not be!" she cried.

"See the misery and oppression, here, tenfold! Nothing has been done! Nobody heard of Him! He could not fail! What a blasphemy, what a travesty on His Word, to come and fulfil it not and go hence unnoticed! It can not be!" "But, but--" he protested, somehow terrified by her denial, "only you have not heard.

Everywhere are those who believe it and I saw--I saw--" The growing violence of dissent on her face urged him to speak what his shamed and guilty tongue hesitated to pronounce.
"I saw in Ephesus one who saw Him; I saw in Patmos one who had reclined on His breast!" "A--a--woman ?" she whispered.
"No! No!" he returned in a panic.