This was the end of the lecture, and I felt gladder than ever that Glaucus had gone; for he seemed to me to have been just in the mood to take to heart that last suggestion, “The door is always open.” I hastened to his rooms, but he was not there. I found however that he was expected back soon, for he was making preparations for a journey. Leaving word that I should call again in an hour, I determined to use the interval to leave Arrian’s note with Epictetus. The Master was disengaged and gave me a most kindly welcome, asking with manifest interest about Arrian and his prospects, and giving me to understand that he had heard of me, too, from Arrian and others. His countenance always expressed vigour, but on this occasion it had even more than its usual glow. Perhaps he was a little flushed with the exertion of his lecture. Perhaps he was glad to hear that at least one pupil, likely to do good work in the world, was remembering him gratefully in Bithynia. Possibly he thought another such pupil stood before him. I had never seen him close, face to face. Now I felt strongly drawn towards him, but not quite as pupil to master. From the moment of leaving the lecture-room that day, I had been repeating, “Alas, Cithaeron, why didst thou receive and preserve me?” Poor Œdipus! He seemed to sum up the cry of myriads of mortals predestined to misery. And what gospel had my Master for them? Nothing but mockery, “Poor, servile wretches!” Yet I had felt almost sure, even from the first utterance of the cruel words, that he had not intended to be cruel. Now, as I stood looking down into his face and he up at mine, some kind of subtle fellowship seemed to spring up between us. At least I felt it in myself and thought I saw it in him. And it grew stronger as we conversed. I rapidly recalled the reproach he had just now addressed to himself in his lecture, as coming from one of his pupils, “Are you so hard hearted?” At the moment I had asked “Could it possibly be true?” Now I knew it was not true. Certainly he had been absorbed in God. His God was not the God of Christ. It was a Being of Goodness of some sort, but impersonal, an Alone, not a real Father. Such as it was, however, Epictetus had been absorbed in it. He motioned to me to be seated, and began to question me about friends of his in Rome. I was on the point of replying, when the door burst open and Glaucus suddenly rushed in, beside himself with fury. Striding straight up to Epictetus, he began pouring forth a tale of wrongs, treacheries, outrages and malignities, perpetrated on his family in Corinth. He took no notice of my presence, and I doubt whether he was even aware of it, as he burst out into passionate reproaches on our Master for teaching that a son must witness such sufferings in a father or mother, brother or sister, and say, “These evils are no evils to me.”