She pondered that. “And when I love you so you turn all life to rosy mist, do I love self?” she asked. “Sin is anything that holds us in the realm of shadows, away from God. It may be crime that fetters us in blind dungeons without bars like the Queen Herodias up there in the turret. It may be gayety. It may be wealth. It may be fear. It may be love of flesh, or power. It may be anxious want. It may be doubt; but it is always shadow of self.” “And what is repentance? Would it cut me off from you?” “No, but it would cut you off from planning to gain power by snaring the Roman General yonder. Repentance is to cancel sin by sinning no more, forsaking self and following Light.” She threw her bare arms about his shoulder. “But if I gained Titus, the Emperor’s son, I could have you too, Onesimus! You offer me a Shadow Kingdom I cannot see or touch with hands. I aim at Rome.” “You aim, beloved, at the image of clay and iron seen by the Prophet Daniel; and even now the iron is falling from the clay and the image is crumbling down. The other Kingdom is of gold and light and eternity. . . .” Two shadows fell athwart where they sat, and the Princess Bernice drew back, while the young presbyter rose. Unutterable pain was on his baffled face. Apollos in his flowing white garments cast a long giant shadow between them. His back was towards the bench and so was the figure of the Princess Drusilla. The towering Apostle with the white hair and white beard had raised his shepherd’s crook and was pointing to the rose-tinted peaks swimming in mystic fire of clouds and light; and as he pointed his upraised staff and arms cast a shadow of the cross between the young presbyter and the slim daughter of the last of the Herods. “Yonder,” he was saying in a voice so like a silver trumpet that traditions have come in Crete to this day that when he spoke all the silver bells of the temple service rang, “Yonder are the mountains of the wilderness, where our Christ was tempted. First, He was tempted to satisfy the hungry cravings of wearied and faint flesh. Then, He was tempted to try out whether God was God enough to save Him from rash slips; and then he was offered all the kingdoms of the earth and their pageantry as in a dream. . . .” “And why didn’t He accept the challenge as a Roman would?” asked the Princess Drusilla in a cold, hard, calculating voice. “If He could have proved His Kingdom instead of going to the Cross like a felon, I’ve heard the Queen Herodias say all Judea would have risen and rallied to Him and thrown off Rome. . . .” “Because the power given Him of God was not for service of self, but to lead men back to God. We may not make playthings of miracles for self,” he said. “So if the Queen Herodias will not acknowledge your God, you cannot cure her madness?” demanded Drusilla. “Remorse is not repentance,” answered the Sage; and the two figures passed on down through the oleanders of the garden.