They walked up and down together on the seashore in the cool evening air. The hours passed, and the situation became more and more difficult for Augustine. What was he to do? Monica was weary and worn out with grief. An idea suggested itself to him suddenly. It was no use waiting any longer, he said, it would be better to take some rest; the boat would certainly not start that night. Monica was in no mood to rest; but Augustine knew her love of prayer. There was a little chapel on the seashore, dedicated to St. Cyprian. Would she not at least go there and take shelter until the morning? He promised her again that he would not leave Carthage, and she at last consented, for her soul was full of sorrow. Kneeling there in the stillness of the little chapel, she poured out the troubles of her heart to God, beseeching Him that He would not let Augustine leave her. The answer seemed a strange one. As she prayed the wind suddenly changed; the sailors prepared to depart. Augustine and his friend went on board, and the ship set sail for Rome. The last thing they saw as the shore faded away in the dim grey of the morning was the little chapel of St. Cyprian lying like a speck in the distance, But they did not see a lonely figure that stood on the sand and stretched out piteous hands to Heaven, wailing for the son whom she had lost a second time. It was God alone Who knew all the bitterness of that mother's heart. It was God alone Who knew how, after the first uncontrollable outburst of grief, she bent herself in faith and love to endure the heartbreak--silent and uncomplaining. And it was only God Who knew that the parting that seemed so cruel was to lead to the granting of her life-long prayer, to be the first stage in her son's conversion. "She turned herself to Thee to pray for me," says Augustine, "and went about her accustomed affairs, and I arrived at Rome." It seemed, indeed, as if his arrival in Rome was destined to be the end of his earthly career, for soon afterwards he was attacked by a violent fever and lay at death's door. He was lodging in the house of a Manichean, for, although he no longer held with their doctrines, he had many friends among them in Carthage who had recommended him to some of their sect in Rome. Augustine himself was convinced that he owed his life at this time to his mother's prayers. God would not, for her sake, let him be cut off thus in all his sins, unbaptized and unrepentant, lest that mother's heart should be broken and her prayers unanswered. He recovered, and began to teach. Already while he was in Carthage he had suspected that the lives of the Manicheans were not much better than those of the heathens among whom they lived, although they gave out that their creed was the only one likely to reform human nature. In Rome his suspicions were confirmed. Thinking that Augustine was altogether one of themselves, they threw off the mask and showed themselves in their true colours.