The love which unites two hearts is like the ocean of Homer which
encircles both halves of the earth. It flows and rolls on. Where shall
we seek its source--here or there--who can tell?

It was Dame Dorothea who in her motherly pride had led the Gaulish lady
into her son's workshop. Sirona thought of her and her husband and her
house, where over the door a motto was carved in the stone which she had
seen every morning from her sleeping-room. She could not read Greek, but
Polykarp's sister, Marthana, had more than once told her what it meant.
"Commit thy way to the Lord, and put thy trust in Him," ran the
inscription, and she repeated it to herself again and again, and then
drew fancy-pictures of the future in smiling day-dreams, which by degrees
assumed sharper outlines and brighter colors.

She saw herself united to Polykarp, and as the daughter of Petrus and
Dorothea, at home in the senator's house; she had a right now to the
children who loved her, and who were so dear to her; she helped the
deaconess in all her labors, and won praise, and looks of approval. She
had learned to use her hands in her father's house and now she could show
what she could do; Polykarp even gazed at her with surprise and
admiration, and said that she was as clever as she was beautiful, and
promised to become a second Dorothea. She went with him into his
workshop, and there arranged all the things that lay about in confusion,
and dusted it, while he followed her every movement with his gaze, and
at last stood before her, his arms wide--wide open to clasp her.

She started, and pressed her hands over her eyes, and flung herself
loving and beloved on his breast, and would have thrown her arms round
his neck, while her hot tears flowed--but the sweet vision was suddenly
shattered, for a swift flash of light pierced the gloom of the cavern,