had no suspicion of his meaning; the young fellow, encouraged by this,
laid his hand on her shoulder and would have drawn her towards him but
that she, thrusting him from her as if he were some horrible animal, flew
down the steps as fast as her feet could carry her, and through the
courtyard back into the great entrance-hall.

Here all was, by this time, dark and still; only a few lamps lighted the
pillared space and the flare of a torch fell upon the benches placed
there for the accommodation of priests, laymen and supplicants generally.

Utterly worn out--whether by terror or disappointment or by hunger and
fatigue she scarcely knew--she sank on a seat and buried her face in her
hands.

During her absence the wounded had been conveyed to the sick-houses; one
only was left whom they had not been able to move. He was lying on a
mattress between two of the columns at some little distance from Agne,
and the light of a lamp, standing on a medicine-chest, fell on his
handsome but bloodless features. A deaconess was kneeling at his head
and gazed in silence in the face of the dead, while old Eusebius crouched
prostrate by his side, resting his cheek on the breast of the man whose
eyes were sealed in eternal sleep. Two sounds only broke the profound
silence of the deserted hall: an occasional faint sob from the old man
and the steady step of the soldiers on guard in front of the Bishop's
palace. The widow, kneeling with clasped hands, never took her eyes off
the face of the youth, nor moved for fear of disturbing the deacon who,
as she knew, was praying--praying for the salvation of the heathen soul
snatched away before it could repent. Many minutes passed before the old
man rose, dried his moist eyes, pressed his lips to the cold hand of the
dead and said sadly: