health."

The old presbyter, accustomed to seek in all things the inspiration of
God, beholding her exaltation, thought at once that perhaps a higher
power was speaking through her, and, fearing in his heart, he bent his
gray head, saying,--"Let it be as thou sayest."

On Vinicius, who the whole time had not taken his eyes from her, this
ready obedience of Crispus produced a wonderful and pervading
impression. It seemed to him that among the Christians Lygia was a kind
of sibyl or priestess whom they surrounded with obedience and honor; and
he yielded himself also to that honor. To the love which he felt was
joined now a certain awe, in presence of which love itself became
something almost insolent. He could not familiarize himself, however,
with the thought that their relations had changed: that now not she was
dependent on his will, but he on hers; that he was lying there sick and
broken; that he had ceased to be an attacking, a conquering force; that
he was like a defenceless child in her care. For his proud and
commanding nature such relations with any other person would have been
humiliating; now, however, not only did he not feel humiliated, but he
was thankful to her as to his sovereign. In him those were feelings
unheard-of, feelings which he could not have entertained the day before,
and which would have amazed him even on that day had he been able to
analyze them clearly. But he did not inquire at the moment why it was
so, just as if the position had been perfectly natural; he merely felt
happy because he remained there.

And he wished to thank her with gratefulness, and still with a kind of
feeling unknown to him in such a degree that he knew not what to call
it, for it was simply submission. His previous excitement had so