And when Pomponia retired to her own room, she knelt down, and with bowed head, and clasped hands, and outstretched arms, poured out her thanks to Him who had been her protector in this most painful trial of her life. She was a confessor and a martyr, in will if not in deed; for though she had not been called upon to declare herself a Christian, she had been prepared to do so if the question had been put to her. When Plautius entered he found her praying, and as she rose at his entrance he saw upon her features a beauty even brighter than that which she had caught from the sunbeam which had shone upon her in the hall. ‘My wife,’ he said to her very tenderly, as he kissed her. ‘I know not what to think of thy beliefs. Thou hast not concealed from _me_ that thou art of this new sect. I know that men call it despicable and execrated; but if it makes its votaries such as thou art, it is more blessed and more potent than the worship of the gods of Rome.’ ‘My Aulus,’ she answered, ‘I know well that as yet thou canst not think with me. Yet thou, too, art dear to God, for thou hast felt after Him if happily thou mightest find Him. Our teachers say that He is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that seeketh Him and doeth righteousness, as thou dost, is accepted of Him. Fear not, my husband; in the next world, as in this, we shall be united, for thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven.’ CHAPTER XXXI _THE INTERIOR OF A SLAVE-PRISON_ ‘Magnam rem sine dubio fecerimus si servulum infelicem in ergastulum miserimus.’--SENECA, _De Ira_, iii. 32. We left Onesimus in a prison cell among the substructions of the Palatine, his back sore with scourging, his soul torn with shame and indignation. He cursed his folly, without repenting of his faults. Once more he had thrown away every element of prosperity; and his manner of looking on life was so entirely selfish that the source of his self-reproach was rather the shipwreck of his chances than the moral instability which had led to it. No news reached him in his prison. It was not till his liberation that he learnt the fate of Britannicus--a fate which, if he had continued steadfast in duty, he might have averted or delayed. He knew that he could not be restored to his trusted position as the _servus a purpura_ of the Empress. He would lose that, and with it lose all the flattery and gain which accrued so easily to the higher slaves of Cæsar’s household. He doubted whether even Acte’s influence could screen him from the consequences of an offense so deadly as misconduct in the august presence of the imperial divinity. But he felt a desperate pride and a morbid shame which made him determine to conceal all traces of himself and his misdemeanour from Acte’s knowledge.