Now, was he who, in that instance, had allowed it to be perceived and felt that he was really the Lord of life, whom death and rottenness were manifestly unable to disobey--was he himself, as his disciples declared he was, living again among them, since the morning of the last Sunday (the _feria prima_), according to his own public prediction and distinct promise? Was he not? Was he? Aglais and Paulus had heard more than one circumstantial account of this, his reappearance, according to that, his promise. By this one and by the other he had been met. They had gazed upon him, spoken to him, heard him in reply, touched him, in such a place, on that bridge, that road, in such a garden. He had walked conversing with them, had sat with them at meat, had broken bread with them, as was his wont, had then vanished. Where was his body, over which the Pharisees had set their guard of soldiers? Not in the grave. No; but where? Had the Pharisees accounted for it? Could they tell what had become of it? Could the soldiers? The disciples could, and they did. "Mother," said Paulus, "do you know what those soldiers say? One of them once served in a legion which I commanded. Do you know what they say?" "You mean," replied Aglais, "about their inability to hinder the abstraction. What?" "That an act to which they are the only witnesses could not be stopped by them, because of it they were not witnesses, being buried in sleep." "Consistent," said the Greek lady. "Yes; but a much weightier fact is that expectation of the disciples, to prevent the realization of which the Pharisees set their guard." "What expectation? And why weightier? What can be weightier?" asked the general. "That their Master would keep his word, and fulfil his prediction of rising from the tomb on the third day. If they saw him again alive within the promised time, they and the people would worship him as God; but, if the Pharisees could show the body on the third day, or could even account for it, that belief would die." "Clearly," answered Paulus, "the disciples expected to see him again on and after the third day, waiting for his word to be fulfilled." "Now, Paulus," pursued Aglais, "suppose this expectation of theirs not fulfilled; suppose that not one of those waiting for his word was conscious of any reason for believing it to have been realized--" Paulus interrupted his mother. "There is only one possible way in which they could be induced to believe it realized--namely, that he should be seen again alive." "Quite so," she resumed. "But suppose that he has not been seen; suppose that not one of those who expected to see him again has thus seen him. How would they then feel on this Wednesday morning?"