But when, as in every Roman house, a multitude live in a confined space, the whole ways of the house become known to all, and Onesimus knew the place where Nereus kept the ready money of his master. He watched his opportunity when all but a few members of the household were absent to witness a festival, from which he had purposely absented himself on a plea of sickness. The only persons left at home were Nereus and others who, being Christians, avoided giving the smallest sanction to pagan ceremonies. The house was still as the grave in the noontide, when the youth glided into the cell of the sleeping Nereus, and deftly abstracted from his tunic the key which he wanted. Armed with this, he slipped into the _tablinum_, or private room, of Pudens--whom he knew to be on duty at the Palace--and had already opened the casket in which he kept his money, when he was startled by a low voice and a gliding footstep. He had not been unobserved. Nereus was too faithful, and too much aware of the dishonesty of the unhappy class to which he belonged, to leave his master’s interests unprotected. He had directed his daughter always to be watchful at the hour when he knew that a theft was most feasible. Junia, from the apartments of the female slaves, on the other side of the house, had heard some one moving stealthily along the passage. Hidden behind a statue, she had observed a slave stealing into her father’s cell, had followed lightly, and with a pang of shame had seen the youth of whom she had thought as a lover make his way noiselessly to the room of his master. She followed him to the entrance; she saw him open the casket; and she grew almost sick with terror when she thought of the frightful punishment--possibly even crucifixion itself--which might follow the crime he was on the eve of committing. She would fain have stopped him, but did not dare to enter the chamber; and, meanwhile, for some reason the youth was lingering. He was lingering because there rang in his ear a voiceless memory of words which Epaphras had quoted as a message of Paul of Tarsus. The still voice said to him: ‘Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands.’ He was trying to suppress the mutiny of ‘the blushing shamefast spirit’ within him, as he thought of the games and the dice-box and the Subura, when he was thrilled through and through by a terrified and scarcely audible whisper of his name-- ‘Onesimus!’ He turned round, and with nervous haste relocking the casket, hurried into the passage. There, with head bowed over her hands, he saw the figure of a young girl. For one instant she raised her face as he came out, and he exclaimed--‘Junia!’ She raised her hand with a warning gesture, put her finger to her lips, and vanished. She fled towards the garden behind the farthest precincts of the house, and he overtook her in a walk sheltered from view by a trellis covered with the leaves of a spreading vine.