In genuine anguish he looked back to the house, where he could no longer accomplish his good work. The watch thought that he was simply deploring his evil star which had baulked him of his wicked purpose, and treated the apparently incorrigible monk to blows and hard words until he was safely in ward. He had to lie there for many days, and was several times brought before the judge. True, he was at length discharged without punishment, seeing that he had killed the man in self-defence. But nevertheless he came out of the affair with the reputation of a homicide, and every one cried out that now, surely, they must unfrock him. But Bishop Joannes, who was then chief at Alexandria, must have had some inkling of the real state of affairs, or else have cherished some deeper design; for he declined to expel the disreputable monk from the clergy, and ordered that for the present he was to be allowed to continue his extraordinary career. He lost no time in returning to the converted sinner, who in the interval had gone back to her old ways, and would not admit the horrified and distressed Vitalis until he had appropriated another object of value and brought it to her. She repented and converted a third, and likewise a fourth and fifth time, for she found these conversions more lucrative than anything else, and moreover the evil spirit in her found an infernal satisfaction in mocking the poor monk with an endless variety of devices and inventions. As for him, he now became a veritable martyr inwardly and outwardly; for, the more cruelly he was deceived, the more he felt compelled to exert himself, and it seemed to him as if his own eternal welfare depended on the reformation of this one person. He was already a homicide, a violator of churches, a thief; but he would rather have cut off his hand than part with the least portion of his reputation as a profligate; and, though all this became harder and harder for his heart to bear, he strove all the more eagerly to maintain his wicked exterior in the world's eye by means of frivolous speech. For this was the special form of martyrdom which he had elected. All the same, he became pale and thin, and began to flit about like a shadow on the wall, though always with a laughing face. Now over against that house of torment dwelt a rich Greek merchant who had an only daughter called Iole, who could do what she liked, and consequently never knew what to do with herself all the live-long day. For her father, who was retired from business, studied Plato, and when tired of him he would compose neat epigrams on the ancient engraved gems of which he had a large collection; but Iole, when she had laid aside her music, could think of no outlet for her lively fancies, and would peep out restlessly at the sky and at the distance, from every peep-hole she found.