it then; but listen while I tell you this:—­When Rome was, I was; when Constantinople was, I was.  I was that Jew rescued from the lions.  It was I who sailed from the Bosphorus in that ship, with Julia beside me; I from whom the Moorish pirates tore her, on the beach beside Tetuan; I who, centuries after, drew those obscene figures on the wall of your church—­the devil, the nun, and the barred convent—­when Julia, another Julia but the same soul, was denied to me and forced into a nunnery.  For the frescoes, too, tell my history. I was that figure in the dark habit, standing a little back from the cross.  Tell me, sir, did you never hear of Joseph Kartophilus, Pilate’s porter?”

I saw that I must humour him.  “I have heard his legend,” said I;[1] “and have understood that in time he became a Christian.”

He smiled wearily.  “He has travelled through many creeds; but he has never travelled beyond Love.  And if that love can be purified of all passion such as you suspect, he has not travelled beyond forgiveness.  Many times I have known her who shall save me in the end; and now in the end I have found her and shall be able, at length, to die; have found her, and with her all my dead loves, in the body of a girl whom you call half-witted—­and shall be able, at length, to die.”

And with this he bent over the table, and, resting his face on his arms, sobbed aloud.  I let him sob there for a while, and then touched his shoulder gently.

He raised his head.  “Ah,” said he, in a voice which answered the gentleness of my touch, “you remind me!” And with that he deliberately slipped his coat off his left arm and, rolling up the shirt sleeve, bared the arm almost to the shoulder.  “I want you close,” he added with half a smile; for I have to confess that during the process I had backed a couple of paces towards the door.  He took up a candle, and held it while I bent and examined the thin red line which ran like a circlet around the flesh of the upper arm just below the apex of the deltoid muscle.  When I looked up I met his eyes challenging mine across the flame.

“Mr. Laquedem,” I said, “my conviction is that you are possessed and are being misled by a grievous hallucination.  At the same time I am not fool enough to deny that the union of flesh and spirit, so passing mysterious in everyday life (when we pause to think of it), may easily hold mysteries deeper yet.  The Church Catholic, whose servant I am, has never to my knowledge denied this; yet has providentially made a rule of St. Paul’s advice to the Colossians against intruding into those things which she hath not seen.  In the matter of this extraordinary belief of yours I can give you no such comfort as one honest man should offer to another:  for I do not share it.  But in the more practical matter of your conduct towards July Constantine, it may help you to know that I have accepted your word and propose henceforward to trust you as a gentleman.”