We may be sure that many and many a time Alexis longed to emerge from his despised obscurity and comfort them all three, but it was not for that God had brought him back. The command of silence was never lifted, and so the son—the heir—lived on, a ragged beggar, laughed at and also abused by his father’s servants, praying in St. Boniface’s Church by day, sleeping in the cranny under the stairs at night, allaying his hunger by the scraps the servants threw him, and always blessing them and praising God, who thus satisfied His own servant’s hunger for poverty and suffering and humiliation. This second trial, this exile of the heart, lasted also seventeen years. At that time the very existence of Rome was threatened by Alaric the Goth; once and twice, he had turned from its gates laden with the ransom exacted for not entering them; he was threatening to approach again, and this time he had sworn to enter and destroy. The population was crowding the Churches to pray for deliverance, when a mysterious voice rang out in each separate Church, “Seek ye the man of God, that he may pray for Rome!” Terror fell upon the suppliant masses, and none dared speak or move. Then the same voice cried, “Seek in the house of Euphemian.” There was a rush to the Aventine, for all knew the great noble’s dwelling. The Pope, Innocent I, had heard the command and himself went thither, followed by all his ecclesiastics and the Senators as well. When they reached Euphemian’s house it was the Pope who led them to the dark corner under the stairs—dark no longer, but flooded with celestial light, where the nameless beggar lay dying alone. His hands were already cold, but in one he held a crucifix, in the other a slip of parchment which no one could make him relinquish, though many tried to take it away from him. Then Innocent commanded him, in the Name of God, to give it up, and immediately Alexis let him take it with his own hand. And the Pope, standing up beside the dying man, opened the slip, and read aloud therefrom the name and family of the beggar; and a great cry went through the house that it was Alexis, the son who had been mourned for dead these many years. And father and mother and wife threw themselves down beside him, embracing him and weeping bitterly, for in that moment his soul had gone to God.