Philammon walked to it, and opened it. The pavement was fully
twenty feet below; but his business was to obey, and not take
measurements. There was a flower in the vase upon the sill. He
quietly removed it, and in an instant more would have leapt for life
or death, when Cyril's voice thundered 'Stop!'

'The lad will pass, my Peter. I shall not be afraid now for the
secrets which he may have overheard.'

Peter smiled assent, looking all the while as if he thought it a
great pity that the young man had not been allowed to put
talebearing out of his own power by breaking his neck.

'You wish to see the world. Perhaps you have seen something of it
to-day.'

'I saw the murder--'

'Then you saw what you came hither to see; what the world is, and
what justice and mercy it can deal out. You would not dislike to
see God's reprisals to man's tyranny? .... Or to be a fellow-worker
with God therein, if I judge rightly by your looks?'

'I would avenge that man.'

'Ah! my poor simple schoolmaster! And his fate is the portent of
portents to you now! Stay awhile, till you have gone with Ezekiel
into the inner chambers of the devil's temple, and you will see
worse things than these--women weeping for Thammuz; bemoaning the