The young presbyter trembled. “My Unseen King will keep me from all harm,” he answered; “and I dare not wear it till we are united for His Kingdom.” “Look,” she said, “the Evening Star—Isis. The dewdrops are her tears.” “’Twas the Star brought the Wise Men of the East,” he answered, “and there shall be no more tears in His Kingdom.” An awful loneliness and an awful loveliness seemed to envelop her fragile form. The young presbyter drew towards her as if to wrest her from her Dead Sea hopes and take her to that Unseen Kingdom with violent hands. “Where have you been with the great Apollos, these long long years, my Onesimus?” she dreamily asked. “To Babylonia and Assyria aiding the greatest apostle of all—Peter,” he answered. “He, who lied and denied his leader and cut the High Priest’s servant’s ear off at the trial long years ago, as I have heard the Queen Herodias tell?” she asked. “Say rather, Princess, he who learned in sin his own weakness, and whose great heart grew tender for all who fall in slippery places. He learned not to trust his own strength even in love, but—God’s.” She pondered that absently plucking the cyclamens; and her hands were slender as the lily stems. The silver clouds rolled from below and the translucent water lay a painted sea. “What does your Master Apollos teach? How differs he from the others?” “I’ll answer that as Paul answered years ago in Rome, when Ephesus and Corinth wrote to know whether they should follow Paul, or Apollos. Paul followed the Nazarene. Apollos professed John, the Baptist; and when the followers would have wrangled one against another, and so missed the news of the Glad Kingdom in strife, Paul wrote back—’twas but a few years before Nero slew him—Paul plants; Apollos waters; God gives the increase!” “You speak as a gardener.” “I am, dear Princess— We are all gardeners, gardeners in the field of flowers which the Persians call ‘Ardath’—the Garden of God called Paradise.” “I like that. I can understand that better than an Unknown Kingdom not made with hands! That Garden kind of Kingdom would be Glad News to me, Onesimus! I could wander through that kind of Garden, forever, if I had hold of your hand! Sit at my feet, dear playmate of the long ago, and tell me of your Garden—no, sit by my side, I would hold your hand now!” She drew him down to the ivory bench beside her. He flushed as deep as the rose-tinted mountains in the setting sun. “Now tell me of your Garden called Paradise, while I can feel your thoughts flowing into mine through the palm of your hand. This is Paradise enough for me.” “Your hand, dear Princess, throbs too hard for the peace of that Garden. It is a Garden where there is eternal light, nor suffering, nor care, nor sorrow, nor dark, nor sleep to miss one hour of joy.” “That, too, I like,” she said. “Let us not miss this hour of joy.”