her beautiful name calmed his disquiet, and the brook murmuring under the bridge through the silence of the gorge disposed Paul to indulge his memory, and in it the past was so pathetic and poignant that it was almost a pain to remember.  But he must remember, and following after a glimpse of the synagogue and himself preaching in it there came upon him a vision of a tall, grave woman since known to him as a thorn in his flesh, but he need not trouble to remember his sins, for had not God himself forgiven him, telling him that his grace was enough?  Why then should he hesitate to recall the grave, oval face that he had loved?  He could see it as plainly in his memory as if it were before him in the flesh, her eyes asking for his help so appealingly that he had been constrained to relinquish the crowd to Barnabas and give his mind to Eunice.  And they had walked on together, he listening to her telling how she had not been to the Synagogue for many years, for though she and her mother were proselytes to the Jewish faith, neither practised it, since her marriage, for her husband was a pagan.  She had indeed taught her son the Scriptures in Greek, but no restraint had been put upon him; and she did not know to what god or goddess he offered sacrifice.  But last night an angel visited her and told her that that which she had always been seeking (though she had forgotten it) awaited her in the synagogue.  So she had gone thither and was not disappointed.  I’ve always been seeking him of whom thou speakest.  Her very words, and the very intonation of her voice in these words came back to him; he had put questions to her, and they had not come to the end of their talk when Laos, calling from the doorstep, said:  wilt pass the door, Eunice, without asking the stranger to cross it?  Whereupon she turned her eyes on Paul and asked him to forgive her for her forgetfulness, and Barnabas arriving at that moment, she begged him to enter.

And they had stayed on and on, exceeding their apportioned time, Barnabas reproving the delay, but always agreeing that their departure should be adjourned since it was Paul’s wish to adjourn it.  So Barnabas had always spoken, for he was a weak man, and Paul acknowledged to himself that he too was a weak man in those days.

Laos seemed to love Barnabas as a mother, and Laos and Eunice were received by me into the faith, Paul said.  On these words his thoughts floated away and he became absorbed in recollections of the house in Lystra.  The months he had spent with these two women had been given to him, no doubt, as a recompense for the labours he had endured to bring men to believe that by faith only in our Lord Jesus Christ could they be saved.  He would never see Lystra again with his physical eye, but it would always be before him in his mind’s eye:  that terrible day the Jews had dragged him and Barnabas outside the town rose up before him.  Only by feigning death did they escape the fate of Stephen.  In the evening