Beneath her eyes the golden light of a summer sunset was flooding the temples, the baths, the stately villas of ancient "Rome in England"--the city of Sulcastra. Garbed as a Priestess of the Temple, she stood upon a plateau, high on the Hill of Sul on the east side of the valley. Behind her rose the Temple of the Goddess, and by her side stood one whom she knew to be the sculptor Lucius Flaccus, son of that centurion who was charged to carry Paul from Adramythium to Rome. He had been telling her in graphic phrases of his association with the great Apostle; how for the first time he had heard him on Mars' Hill at Athens boldly rebuking the listening and resentful throng who had erected there an altar _to the unknown God_. Then with a gesture of repugnance which horrified the priestess, the narrator, quoting the Christian preacher's words, had turned and pointed towards the Temple in which she with other vestals kept ever burning the sacred fire of Sul. "Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like silver or gold, graven by art or man's device...." Thus far he had spoken when her own voice interrupted passionately: "Do not blaspheme the gods!" "The gods are dead," he answered sternly, "nay, rather, they have never lived. Our Roman gods have eyes that see not, ears that hear not, they are but silver, gold, or stone--the work of hands like these." Thus speaking, he held forth his hands, delicate and mobile, in one of which was grasped the chisel of his ancient art. The priestess stood for a moment looking in his eyes, silent, terror-stricken. "Yet," he went on, bending his gaze upon the city with a sigh, "Sulcastra is beautiful."