"Yes!" exclaimed Arsinoë, a prophetic gleam in her sombre eyes, "the future is in us, in our madness and our anguish! Julian was right. Content without glory, in silence, strangers to all, and solitary among men, we must work out our work to the end. We must hide and cherish the last, the utmost spark amongst the ashes of the altar, that tribes and nations of the future may kindle from it new torches! Where we finish they shall begin. Let Hellas die! Men shall dig up her relics--unearth her divine fragments of marble, yea, over them shall weep and pray! From our tombs shall the yellowed leaves of the books we love be unsealed, and the ancient stories of Homer, the wisdom of Plato, shall be spelt out slowly anew, as by little children. And with Hellas, you and I shall live again!" "And with us, revives the curse on us!" exclaimed Anatolius, "The struggle between Olympus and Golgotha will begin over again!--Why? And when shall that struggle end? Answer, sibyl, if thou canst!" Arsinoë was silent, and her eyes fell. Then she glanced at Ammianus and pointed to him-- "There is one who will answer you better than I. Like ours, his heart is shared between Christ and Olympus, and yet he keeps the lucidity of his soul." Ammianus Marcellinus, putting aside the manuscript by Clement, had been quietly listening to the discussion. "In truth," said the Epicurean, addressing him, "we have now been friends for more than four months, and yet I do not know whether you are a Christian or a Hellenist?" "Nor I myself," answered the young Ammianus frankly, with a blush. "What? No torture of doubts? No suffering from the antagonism between the Greek and the Christian doctrine?" "No, my friend; I think that the two teachings in many points agree...." "But how--from what point of view--do you intend to write your account of the Roman Empire? One of the two scales of the balance must sink and the other rise?" "Not consciously, I hope," answered the historian; "My aim is to be just to both. Julian the Emperor I love, but even for him I shall be impartial. No one shall know which side I join, any better than I know myself...." Anatolius had already proved the bravery, the chivalrous friendship of Ammianus, and now he was daily discovering in him other qualities no less rare. "You are born to be a historian, Ammianus, to be the judge of our passionate age, and to bring its warring philosophies, in some sort, to a reconciliation!" "I shall not be the first to do that," answered Ammianus. He rose to his feet and pointing with enthusiasm to the parchment-rolls of the great Christian master--