I returned his salutation. Then we were both silent. Nothing was in his hand, yet I felt sure that he had found my book, and I waited for him to speak. But a moment’s reflection shewed me his difficulty. Was he, a stranger, to ask a Roman knight whether he had dropped one of the religious books of a proscribed superstition? It was for me, if for either, to begin. I liked the stranger’s look even better than before and felt that he could be trusted; so I told him of my loss. He at once placed the volume in my hands saying that he had come back to restore it, believing me to be the owner. I thanked him heartily. He replied that I was welcome, then waited a moment or two, as though to allow me to say more if I pleased. I stood silent, wanting to speak, but as it were tongue-bound—not so much afraid as ashamed. At last, I stammered out something about the wood and its distance from Nicopolis. He smiled as though he understood my embarrassment. Then he repeated that I was welcome and moved away. I had suffered him to go a dozen paces when a voice said within me, “Why do you let him go? Scaurus let Hermas go and repented it. You said that this man did not look ‘forsaken.’ Why do you let him ‘forsake’ you? Why do you make yourself ‘forsaken’? Perhaps he can help you.” I called him back. “Sir,” said I, “pardon me one question. Doubtless you looked at this roll to find some clue to its owner?” “I did,” he replied. “I am interested,” said I, “in this little book”⸺. Then I paused. I had grown into the habit of adding—in writing to Flaccus, to Scaurus, and in speaking to myself too—“from a literary point of view,” “as a historical investigation,” and so on. But now I could not say such things. In the first place, they would not be true. In the second place, I knew instinctively that the man would know that they were not true. Moreover I had a presentiment that he was to be to me what Hermas had almost been to Scaurus. On the other hand, had I the right to ask a perfect stranger whether he had studied a Christian gospel? He read my thoughts. “You desire,” he said, “to ask me something more. Am I acquainted with this book? That, I think, is your question? If so, I say, ‘Yes’.” “There are,” said I, very slowly, and almost as if the words were drawn out of me by force, “some few things that I greatly admire and many things that greatly perplex me, in this little book. I think I might understand some of the latter, had I some guidance.” “I am but a poor guide,” he replied. “Nevertheless, if it is your will, I am quite willing. I have an hour’s leisure. Then I must go on my business. Shall we sit down here?”